Chapter 39: The War Begins

At the screeching sound emitting from Solaris’s ring, Silvana awoke and slammed her hand down on the dresser as if catching a fly on the wall.

She pressed the ring to her palm and felt a jolt shake any sleepiness out of her, and she sat up in the bed as Bruce and Amelia both woke, their eyes still heavy and bodies drooped in blankets.

“I need your help sooner than I had thought,” Solaris shouted. He was out of breath and sounded focused.

“Get Bruce to the Silverclaw manor as soon as you are able,” Solaris said. Silvana could tell that wherever her father was, he was moving quickly.

“I’ve got one final shot to unite the werewolves and the witches, but I require the vote of the Silverclaw Alpha.”

“Unite?” Bruce asked to himself, recalling the torture Solaris had put him through.

Had Solaris really turned such a new leaf?

Bruce leaned in and said, “We’re all on our way. Tell the pack I’m coming.”

Then the sound of thunder whipped so hard through the ring that it shocked Silvana and startled Amelia off the futon and to the floor.

Silvana dropped the ring onto the bed, and it glowed red and sashayed about on the covers as Solaris told them, “Get to the manor, quickly! We’re all under attack!”

All traces of light left the ring’s bloodstone, and no more sound came out of it.

Bruce tossed the covers off him and began changing into a pair of warm wool socks, a flannel shirt, and jeans.

Silvana followed his lead and slipped into a cozy pair of tight, flexible, gray pants, and a green wool sweater.

Amelia got to her feet and off the floor, tripped over the blankets she was still wrapped in, and then gasped as she saw out the window.

The sky had gone completely crimson, and the sun had turned the color of fresh blood.

“What’s happening?” Amelia muttered. Her knees shook as scarlet lightning the size of buses smashed craters into the ground far off and in the distance. Was that the fray they were about to enter to help Solaris?
Amelia gulped but resolved to get dressed and ready for battle no matter how worried and nervous she was. Silvana and Bruce both fastened warm gloves and coats around them, followed by knit hats and scarves, and although they were dressing to fight the frigid cold, they carried themselves in a way that determined they were ready to fight so much more than the elements.

Quick as she could, Amelia got dressed and joined her friends downstairs. There was no time for breakfast or coffee, and Silvana and Bruce ran outside to get the car started.

Things had gotten much colder outside since Angus had come knocking only a few hours ago. Sheets of ice were stamped to the ground, and the car was so covered in ice and sleet and snow that Silvana had to sweep a magical hand over it, melting the ice off the windshield in a drizzle of blue sparks.

Amelia ran outside, locked the door behind her, and then stepped in something squishy that she knew by the strange sound it made was not the crunch of snow. She looked down and saw that she had stepped on the plate of duck and cranberry sauce left for her by Angus Prescott, her neighbor, and she shook her head in disappointment. Her hungry stomach could have used that meal, and it felt so disrespectful to the handsome Angus to so clumsily destroy his hard work, but she knew that above all else, this was a good thing.

As she dragged her winter boot through the snow to remove remnants of duck and sauce, and as Amelia made for the car, she knew that stepping on Angus’s meal was a good thing for her because now she was alert, and better she be clumsily over something harmless than in the throws of fighting spirits.

Now, she would watch her every step.

The wound on her arm throbbed.

After all, her last battle didn’t exactly go in her favor, and had it not been for Silvana’s strength, she would have certainly died.

Amelia closed the door behind her and Silvana drove them away from the cabin, past the slippery hills and slushy roads that led to the Silverclaw manor.

“We’ve got to be prepared for anything,” Silvana said, knowing that they were all closing in on the manor.

While the lightning had stopped, they could hear screaming and ghastly whistles, like there was an entire army of spirits cackling.

Bruce reached over and grabbed Silvana’s hand.

She steered with one and Amelia checked through the backseat window, trying to get a better sense of what lied ahead in the depths of the crimson sky.

“Let’s all put an end to this,” Bruce said. He rubbed a thumb across Silvana’s knuckles and the touch comforted her, though Bruce could see that she was perhaps more ready than any of them.

Then Silvana slammed the brakes.

The driveway to the mansion had a gaping hole in it, and the concrete had crumbled in multiple areas, making it impossible to drive over.

Bruce exhaled sharply.

Half of the mansion was destroyed and looked as though comets had struck its once magnificent and royal facade. In the center of the wrecked concrete that had before been the driveway, the fountain, too, had fallen, and the stone wolves of the fountain’s statue laid in shattered pieces.

The three exited the car and took to climbing over the rubble.

And just then, what remained of the massive wooden front doors to the mansion exploded off their large hinges in a crackle of scarlet flames. Evil spirits made of twisted red lightning hammered down the stairs in numbers too large to count. From one side of the mansion, an enormous pack of transformed werewolves ran about, howling at the spirits. From the other side came the covets of witches, their hands raised and readied to cast magic.

Solaris appeared at the front of the witches, looking ten years younger and moving as if he’d spent his life training to be an athlete.

Even with both forces, the spirits outnumbered the witches and werewolves, and they readied all sorts of vicious weapons like swords and spears and axes.

Above all of them, the black, sooty clouds in the sky formed to create the laughing face of Cecilia Duponte.

Silvana, Amelia, and Bruce ran to the bottom of the manor’s stairs as the spirits charged them and the witches and werewolves flanked from both sides.

It was going to be a showdown.