Luke looked at the black-haired woman. Her surface thoughts had been clear: her cryptoclast hunting group was searching for lupans so they could kill them, believing them to be the spawn of the devil. They had also been told, recently, that their bodies held magical properties by someone who was goading them to action. They had been given the rough location of this pack by a woman, surely his old enemy, and she herself had been identified as their best bet, due to her resemblance to Julia. She had the same build, the same black hair, and the same violet eyes as the woman he had lost so many years ago. This clinched it. They had stolen the skull and sent her as an assassin. Maybe they believed he would hesitate in killing her. That idea only infuriated him further.
She had managed to insinuate herself right into this house, where the abandoned cub lived. Who could have guessed that the suspect he had been trying to isolate, the menace to his own species, was right here, under the nose of the deserted cubling he also needed to follow up on.
He could have saved himself some trouble if he’d handled his tasks in a different order. This was a perfect example of why it was unwise to let any matter escape oversight, for any amount of time; the hazards could snowball. He hoped the ferals were taking note, though he suspected he would not be able to allow them to live even if they did learn their lesson. With only 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 4 weeks in a moon, and 13 moons in a year, how was he supposed to handle all the judgments that had to be made? There were too many humans, too many lupans, and not enough time. He had an assistant in every quarter of the world, but what he really needed was a protégé: someone who could follow in his footsteps and orchestrate the work, someone intelligent, loyal, disciplined, and strong-willed. He didn’t even have time to make determinations and to delegate basic tasks anymore, he was constantly responding to crises. There were too few faithful lupans he could fully trust. This pack was a perfect example; it was a total mess.
His focused shifted as he noticed the other pure human in this dynamic, and wondered that he had missed the man. While not tall, he was clearly a huge physical threat, were he to be released from the stasis Luke held over the entire group. A quick scan of his mind showed some subservience to the abandoned cubling, and a fierce anger. There was a single-minded determination, an intense anxiety at his immobility, and a desire to obliterate all but the young blond man behind him. But there was something else about the man that eluded Luke. It seemed both familiar and alien, and it drew him, but there was no time to delve further. There was too much going on here, he needed to get the situation under control, and get inside for the final task.
His focus returned quickly to Diana, as he examined the primary threats in front of him. He had come to discipline the ferals, who had led him to the abandoned cub they should have dealt with months ago, and with it, this hunter, who was here because of the failure of his only assistant in this region. But before he dealt with the ferals, he had to deal with the cub, and before he dealt with the cub, he had to deal with the hunter. She would kill them all if she were given the freedom, even if it got her killed, like an omega wolf would, like Sarah had asked to do to the vampires in the recesses of the alleyways of Seattle. The hatred between lupans and cryptoclasts was just as intense as that between lupans and vampires.
“Who sent you?” He asked her. He had released her vocal chords when he asked the first question, but everything else of hers remained under his control. He mentally forced her arm down so the gun was pointing at the ground. He walked forward until he was two feet from her, grasped the barrel of the gun, then used his mind to make her hand spasm so he could easily pull it from her grip. Her eyes widened as he rotated it and aimed it at her face. “Who?” He repeated.
Diana’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not giving you any names from my group.”
Luke laughed, as the names and cities of all her companions flashed across her mind. “You don’t have to speak them, I have them now. If you had been hunting lupans long, you would know I read minds. And no one taught you not to think of the camel’s knee.”
Her eyes went wide. Surely, she’d been told to expect him? She hadn’t identified him when he came out of the woods. Now she was frightened. He could see it in her eyes, and he could smell it on her, like a sharp musk, but it filled her mind with a dread that was not at all out of place. He rarely got involved with hunters. The pack had the skills to handle them, and usually kept themselves under the radar better than this situation. Of course, he was going to kill her. He could hardly leave her alive under the circumstances. But he had a lot to do, and this entire situation forced him to take every step carefully, to make sure he tied up all the loose ends. He turned around to look at the pack of men and women. All eyes were focused intently on him. Good. At least they knew not to betray the laws here, when he was looking them straight in the eye. That they had let the issue go for so long without handling themselves, and forced him to come, was something they would have to pay for later.
The task at hand: he could let them deal with her, and bury the evidence. He didn’t have the time. Then, he could deal with this cubling, who would have to be executed. He hated the need, and at this point, he just wanted to be sure there was no suffering, so he would see to that himself. Like a horse with a broken leg, it was hard knowing the boy would have to be put down, but it had to be done.
The mind of this black-haired man in front of him would also have to be wiped when it was over. He was human, innocent of taint, and needed to be put back where he belonged, wherever that was. There was work to do here. One thing at a time, but quickly.
With a snap, Luke used his mental powers to cause the vessels in Diana’s forehead to explode. Blood started to trickle from her nose as she fell in a heap. He turned around and growled at the semicircle of men and women. Urine leaked through the jeans of several as he continued to growl. When he was sure they were sufficiently reminded who reigned, he released their muscles. Their bodies seemed to curl inward as they looked straight at the ground.
“You will take the woman and leave. I have killed her mind. You will take care of her as we do hunters. I will track her clan down myself and deal with them. You will go to the hospital and check for any alarm in the staff regarding strange lab test results. If you find any, you will call me so I can do an erasure. Your existence depends on doing this well and quickly. I will be back to see that it has been done.” He scanned their faces, making sure he had their complete attention. “GO! And take this moecha putida with you!"
Several of the men ran forward, grabbed Diana's drooling body, and threw it in the back of a pickup like a bag of dog food.
Luke looked back at the two young men before him. This would not be a pleasant task, but it was time to kill the blond lupan who was dying, then erase the mind of the other, as far back as was necessary. Then, he would have to remain and see that any threads remaining were cleaned up. The trucks had all disappeared down the road. He waited for the dust to die down, and the roar of the engines to disappear. With a sigh, Luke stepped forward, quickly, wiped their minds of the entire scene with the ferals, and released both from the praestige. "Hello. It seems I have become lost, and I saw your house. Can you help me?" The sooner they got inside, the sooner they escaped observation by people out hunting or hiking in the area.
The cubling nodded, and the dark, heavily muscled man lowered his gun with a puzzled look, then kept a wary eye on Luke. That was an odd thing. His brief survey of the blond cub's mind showed a definite dominance, but there was a curious dynamic. There was rancor, but the darker, surly man would throw himself in front of a bullet to save the cubling's life. Yet, the man was not a bodyguard, nor a lover, nor family. His mind protested these ideas when Luke pushed the concepts into his thought.
He would need to be careful, but swift. There was never time for gentleness anymore. The dark one kept an eye on Luke as he went in, his body half turned and ready to fight at the first sign of threat. Luke was able to slip him a thought to leave his gun outside, and the man was so caught up in watching everything at once he didn't even realize he was setting it on the patio before he went into the house.