A Congress In Chaos

Ekon

~Mayhem.~

~Ultimate.~

~Unhinged.~

~Pandemonium.~

I inhaled the sulfurous smell of burning flesh. It was already enough of a warning, but the gasps and cries from everyone in the chamber caused me to partially shift.

I immediately wished I hadn’t...

Chair Fakari’s charred remains crumbled at the foot of the podium, gathering into a mound of smoking ash.

The Members of Congress scrambled to get away as guards of the court tried to keep the peace.

But there was no peace.

What we were witnessing was pure, unbridled chaos that could leave the most steel-nerved individual shaking to their core. I knew that because I was shaking myself, wondering what the fuck had just happened.

Bambi clung to my arm, finally tearing my eyes away from Fakari’s smoldering remains.

“Take me out of here,” she demanded. “I can’t stay another second.”

Wrapping my arm around her shoulders, I pushed through the hectic crowd and followed the stream of bodies out of the front doors.

Wizards, werewolves, vampires, and every creature in between gathered on the front steps of the medieval fortress as officials tried to clear out the inside.

“Where are the others?” Bambi asked, searching the sea of faces gathered on the steps.

“They’re probably lost in the fray,” I said. “Let’s just hope they didn’t have to witness what we did.”

Bambi turned to me with fear in her eyes and shook her head. “Everyone saw that, Ekon. It was as if it happened so we could all see.”

I nodded my head, worried that she was right. I couldn’t think straight. My mind was jumbled with a million different questions and none seemed like they would ever be answered.

“I need to find Hunter and Ella,” Bambi said with a concentrated frown. “Maybe they have some idea of what’s going on.”

I laughed harshly and she looked at me, angry.

“What’s so funny?”

“Do you really think anyone knows what’s happening? That was complete madness.”

“Well, what should we do? Stand around and wait for this idiotic Congress to blame us?”

I opened my mouth to respond but couldn’t find the words. What if she was right? We weren’t exactly welcome ~before~ our supposed ally went up in flames. No one would believe that Fakari’s death wasn’t at our hands…

I looked around at the crowd, wishing for a bottle of the strongest rye in the universe to take the edge off my nerves. Where were the others?

Yes, it was crazy to expect to find them right away… but come to think of it, I hadn’t seen or heard from Hunter and Ella since the incident. The chaotic disarray had separated our group and even Leonardo seemed to be lost in the confusion.

“You might be onto something,” I said to Bambi, who did not respond.

I looked to my side, but she was nowhere to be found. She must’ve gone off into the crowd to search on her own, leaving me standing alone on the steps, like a fool.

“Alpha Ekon Jedrick!” a voice screamed from the doors of Congress. “Don’t you move!”

Alpha Vladimir ran down the steps, huffing, and puffing. His face was redder and angrier than normal. This didn’t look good…

“What is it, Vladimir?” I said, trying to hide the concern in my voice. “Don’t you start accusing us of that horrific attack… I’m just as shocked as you.”

Alpha Vladimir stopped right in front of me, hunched over, trying to catch his breath.

“That’s not important right now,” he exclaimed. “We have another problem that’s just as urgent.”

“Oh, shit,” I said.

“‘Oh shit’ is right. That witch Tyler has broken free of her cell!”

Bambi

~You better get down to the dungeons, pronto!~

~I’m coming, I’m coming!~

Ekon’s mind-link messages were starting to get on my nerves. Not only did he have the audacity to not care about the missing members of our entourage… he insisted that I come to find him in the worst part of the Supernatural Parliament. The dungeons...

My search for Hunter, Ela, and Leonardo led me nowhere, and I was starting to worry that one—or all—of them had something to do with Fakari’s spontaneous combustion.

I knew Ela better than that. And she knew she could trust me with any of her deepest secrets. If something were to happen with Tyler, and Ela knew, I believed… or hoped… she would tell me. I put my trust in her when I revealed the secret of Tyler’s glowing tattoo – her summoning call from Devina.

My stomach twisted into knots. Every step I took seemed to give precedent to my greatest fear that one of my friends had helped in this horrific plot.

But who would do such a thing?

“That bastard fucking cunt-sniffer!” Ekon boomed ahead of me. “He’s double-crossed us before. It was stupid to assume he wouldn’t do it again!”

I turned the final corridor that led to the series of cells in the dungeon. Ekon stood with Alpha Vladimir and a handful of others that I didn’t quite recognize.

“You’re telling me you had no idea this would happen?” Alpha Vladimir asked, his voice sounding less than amused. “I should have never allowed it to happen. Freeing a witch known to have committed atrocities for the better part of her life was the most outrageous fucking plan you could have ever thought up!”

“It’s not Tyler’s fault,” I said angrily. “She was brainwashed by Devina.”

Alpha Vladimir turned to the guards and smiled with contempt.

“See what I mean? Sympathizers of these worthless witches will never understand what a threat they are to our society.”

“And you know so much better?” I shouted.

Ekon tried to quiet me, but I pushed him aside and stepped right up to Alpha Vladimir, my face inches from his.

“Watch your words, young Luna,” he warned. “Or you might find yourself in one of these cells.”

“I don’t care! You were going to let Chair Fakari take an innocent young woman and murder her for a series of crimes she doesn’t even remember committing.”

Alpha Vladimir laughed in my face. “Innocent? She burned entire villages to the ground… what happened to Chair Fakari was exactly the type of death Tyler was keen on doling out.”

“Then why didn’t she burn the entire building down?” I questioned. “Why didn’t she take out every last one of us, so there would be no witnesses?”

Alpha Vladimir puffed up his chest, ready to scream in my face.

Ekon stepped between us, using his broad shoulders to help separate the inevitable storm brewing in the dungeon.

“We don’t know what happened, Vladimir,” he said, calmly. “But we will help you get to the bottom of it.”

Another round of laughter from Alpha Vladimir and his cronies filled the small dungeon. It made my body burn with hatred for them. I wanted to shift into my wolf and show them the danger that lurked right before their faces.

Ekon reached out his hand, grabbing hold of my shoulder, warning me otherwise.

I stepped back and made my way into Tyler’s empty cell, looking for any signs of what might have happened. Her scent still permeated the space, but there was something else… another, familiar scent that I couldn’t quite place.

Who did that odor belong to? I should be able to identify it, but with all the tragic frenzy of the day, my brain couldn’t seem to function.

“You really think you can help us?” Vladimir smiled. “How? You can’t even find the missing members of your delegation. Which tells me all that I need to know.”

“What does that mean?” growled Ekon.

“It means that inviting you here was a mistake of the worst kind.”

“I will find that cunt-sniffer and his mate. They will pay for what they’ve done.”

I emerged from the cell, crossing my arms as they continued to argue.

“How do you know it was Hunter?” I asked.

“You will refer to him by his true name: Cunt Sniffer,” Ekon barked.

“I don’t think we should jump to conclusions,” I said slowly. “There are still too many unanswered questions.”

Alpha Vladimir sighed and turned to the guards, nodding his head. He relayed a message to them through mind-link, unwilling to let us hear his true thoughts.

~Coward.~

They wrote down several notes as they exited the dungeon one by one. They were unable to think for themselves, much less stand up straight, lacking their own spines.

“I ask for more time, Alpha Vladimir,” Ekon said. “We will get to the bottom of this and rid Supernatural Parliament of any moles.”

Vladimir shook his head. “The only moles I’m worried about are the ones in your delegation.”

Alpha Vladimir’s words hit Ekon and me like a ton of bricks.

“I will give you a few hours to pack,” Vladimir continued, “only because I used to respect you as the greatest warrior I had ever known. But by sundown, I want you and your Luna out of my mansion. And don’t think you’re welcome to show your faces here ever again.”