Chapter 71 – Ghouls

  Brandon knew that was true. He knew the facts. Like the fact that he knew what those monsters were after. He knew that they weren’t going to stop and he knew exactly where they came from. Brandon knew that the body count would continue to rise if the beasts weren’t dealt with swiftly, but to do that the Guardians needed information.

  I can’t....

  Brandon thought to himself squeezing his fists in his lap. He knew he shouldn’t. HE knew he couldn’t. But....if Brandon told the Shifters more about the monsters he would potentially save lives....possibly Ezekiel’s or any of his brothers lives.

  Or sentence everyone in that valley to death.

  But.....what about Ezekiel? He’s going up against those things again....and it’s all my fault. I owe him for...for saving my life...I owe him.

  Brandon ground his teeth as he quietly agonized over what to do and what to say. And how to say it.

  “Brandon?” Ezekiel said suddenly snatching his breath out of him as Brandon looked up and realized that Ezekiel was watching him. “What’s wrong?”

  “I....” Brandon began, then stopped when all of the brothers caught the change in his tone and glance his way. Feeling his guts clenching, Brandon swallowed and tried again. “I....they.....”

  ***

  “Where is she!! GLEN!!” roared a deep rumble behind them all suddenly.

  The voice completely cutting off Brandon’s stuttering attempts to talk. Brandon breathed, slumped back in the chair, closed his eyes and swallowed again.

  This time he pulled down the words in his throat....words that he should have never thought about uttering in the first place.

  Thankfully all of the brothers looked past him the door way as Mantilo swept into the room. With yellow eyes, he glanced around at the torn up day room and snarled at his sons. “Where is your mother!?” he partially shouted and for the first time since meeting the Shifter Brandon though he saw another emotion besides stiff authority. Fear.

  “Whoa....Dad. She’s fine....She’s safe!” Lander quickly assured his father. “I can hear her thoughts. She’s with Erin and Drin right now....shell be returning to the Mansion any minute now....Calm down.”

  Hear her thoughts?

  Brandon said to himself.

  Bandon had a vague recollection of Ezekiel explaining to him that Lander read people’s minds....but it was a concept he hadn’t really internalized. Even now, in that moment....he found it hard to believe that the green eyed brother was actually listening to the thoughts of his family. But seeing as Brandon had his own problems to deal with just then he had no choice but to accept what was being said. And to secretly thank the stars that Lander.....couldn’t read the turmoil in his mind.

  The was a lot that Brandon was feeling, so much that he needed to do, but....he also felt so empty and numb....Brandon didn’t wasn’t to do anything. So he just continued to watch and listen as Ezekiels family tried to recover and reconcile the danger that had visited them.

  After Lander repeated his words twice more Mantilo seemed to hear him. The yellow light drained from his eyes, leaving them black and cool. Lander began to recount the events of the attack to his father....and as his explanation wound down, Mantilo seemed to take a moment to compose himself, and suddenly, six minutes on his heels, another person sprinted into the room.

  The last of the brothers Nate stumbled to a step into the door way, panting shallowly, and cast a curious glance about the room before he gave Ezekiel an easy smile.

  “Thank.....Thank you....for leaving me behind like that... Dad.” Nate coughed, sucked in a breath, and looked down

  Mantilo turned from Lander and looked at his son with a slight grimace of apology. “I’m sorry.” He apologized, before saying. “I was worried about your mother, I sensed her anger and worry and I knew that something was going on. I couldn’t wait for you.”

  With a chuckle Nate waved a hand at his father. “Its fine....Besides...everyone looks okay...” Nate panted, before straitening up.

  “Man...it really looks like I missed a party.” He said still breathless and in a joking fashion, but in his eyes Brandon could sense the frustration simmering slightly. The need to hunt and kill. Like the Wolf that he was. But as the brother walked further into the room Brandon found it harder to focus on his eyes and more on the conversation.

  “Oh! Now the sorry dog shows his sorry behind.” Lander hissed softly with a soft sneer aimed at the last of the arrivals. “Where were you when we needed you!?”

  “Nate...” Walter quickly intoned, standing to his full height as the new arrival sauntered into the room, of wreckage, wearing a happy uncaring smirk on his face. “I’ve been looking for you all day...You skipped out on patrols....twice.”

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  Walter told him, and if the elder brother wasn’t so stoic and flat in his every action Brandon would have called his expression a disapproving one. But the newest brother simply shrugged off Walters words.

  “Sorry about that guys...” Nate apologized. “But I’ve been preoccupied with a few dozen musky books, and decrepit scrolls. Me and Dad spent the last few days translating some of it for easy interpretation....And while I was down slaving away in in the vault for Dad....I was deprived of food and sunlight and...bug repellant. “The Shifter shivered as though the idea of bugs revolted him.

  That concept being applied to such a tall and handsome Shifter actually made Brandon want to smile but he didn’t, he just followed along as the younger brother in the group continued to motor away. “So, just know, that my entire week has been a complete crap fest.” Nate supplied flippantly, before his dual-colored eyes settled on the decimated furniture, broken glass, and then finally on Brandon.

  The Shifter then cast him a sharp smile. “Although....” Nate began with a wiggle of his eyebrows in Brandon’s direction. The movement making the old scar across his eye lighten. “It looks like you’ve been through the preverbal ringer yourselves....Is there ever going to be a day where you aren’t a bloody mess Brandon?” The wolf asked him.

  Brandon simply shrugged back at him, but Mantilo spoke at that moment drawing the attentions of everyone assembled, even Brandon, even though he already partly knew everything that was about to be said. And he secretly just wanted to leave the room.

  “They are called Ghouls.”

  Everyone’s attention shifted towards the large Shifter as he said this.

  “What..?” Ezekiel asked and once more Mantilo spoke a name that literally made Brandon want to gag.

  “Ghouls.....” Mantilo supplied once more. “I believe that is the long forgotten name for these monstrosities that have intruded on our lands.” Mantilo growled as he walked further into the room stepping casually over the shattered chair blocking the door way. “Over the last few days, I’ve dug through a few of the minds of the men in the villages, and then I did some research on my own in the library.”

  “What library would have information like that? ” Lander thought to ask his father suddenly, but before Mantilo could muster a new response Nate cut in.

  “Oh, it’s a super-secret kind of library that only the Clan Head is able to access. No big deal...really, but I did get to see it.” The dual eyed brother interjected.

  “A secret Library, Nate?” Lander hissed back. “Stop talking out of your ass and just tell us what you found.”

  “I will explain everything....” Mantilo hissed at both of his sons, stopping whatever unpleasant words could have been said next. “This room reeks of...bile. Close your mouths for a few minutes and focus on opening the windows and moving some of this debris out of the way...I have something to show you that might shed some light on this whole incident. So get to it.”

  Covertly anxious, and still felling lost, Brandon remained seated as all of the brothers complied and separately went about the room cracking windows, strong arming or otherwise kicking furniture and glass out of the middle of the room. Mantilo righted one large mahogany table that had somehow only been knocked over in the fray and once everything was completed all of the brothers came back together, standing a few feet in front of their father and the table, Ezekiel standing at the far left of Brandon’s seat.

  “So...what did you need to show us?” Walter rumbled as they all settled their attention on Mantilo.

  “These claw markings....the scent of bile....the black fluids....” The large Clan Head said at first instead of answering, glancing dispassionately at the damage and claw marks all about the room. “That’s is a definite sign that what I had feared all this time is true.” He finally began. “These things, these intruders are called Ghouls. I hadn’t come across one of their kind in many decades. So when I first spotted the dead moose’s and the black slime on the bodies my memory was tickled, but I couldn’t exactly put the pieces together until I visited the library and recovered a few scrolls....”

  And taking a moment to stop speaking Mantilo turned to the table behind him and softly slug off a long cylindrical capsule attached to a strap resting over his shoulder. Brandon hadn’t realized that Mantilo was carrying anything with until that moment, as the Shifter quickly took the capsule in hand and with a soft “Pop” he proceeded to remove the top of the capsule and turn it upside down. A cascaded of thin, yellowed papers cascaded from the opening, fluttering haphazardly all over the surface of the table and even spilling onto the floor.

  Brandon watched Ezekiel and Walter retrieve a few of the fallen papers, while Lander approached the pile of pages beside his father and silently looked them over. “What are these...?” Lander asked, seconds before Ezekiel looked up from the papers in his own hand and said.

  “Are these drawings?” he hissed. Turning his blue eyes up from the paper in confusion “They kind of look like some of those things that attacked us? Where did you find this?” Ezekiel asked his father, but it was Nate that supplied the answer.

  “I already told you....” Nate replied, stepping over to the table and dashing through the papers, grabbing one, then pushing it down again, before turning a smile on his brother. “We found various scrolls just like these, and drawings of the intruders in that hidden sacred library that dad took me too.”

  At this point Mantilo rolled tilted his head and said “It isn’t hidden or scared Nate, it’s simply an old damp cellar filled with old things and even older papers.”

  Nate rose his eyebrows at Ezekiel in a fashion of nonchalance and continued. “You didn’t hear that.” Nate said then hefted the picture in his hand. “This is what we came back with and after we deciphered some of the writing....”

  Apparently thinking to include him, Ezekiel turned and handed Brandon the page that he was holding, before he turned his own attention back to what Nate brother was saying.

  But Brandon couldn’t be bothered to listen the moment he set eyes on the picture. Brandon looked at the image stylized on the brittle and yellow parchment in shock.

  In the center of the sheet, was the Ghoul or a blocked and inked panting of it. All of the limbs were stokes of circles and blocks and in the painting its teeth were overly dramatized, its ears pulled back, and its limbs far too long and painted pitch black, but beyond all of this the essence of the picture was of a Ghoul.

  Big black eyes, dripping fluids, long talons dripping in blood and a pile of silently moaning bodies laid beneath it. Bodies it was devouring. It was obviously an old panting and the dullness of color and the yellow of the canvas it was on, spoke to many years of wear, but none the less it gave Brandon a chill.

  There it was. The monsters that had plagued him endlessly. The monsters that his enemies controlled. Without trying to be too obvious about it, Brandon turned and tossed the sheet to the floor and it was as he was turned that he noticed the approaching footsteps.