The Siphoner - Divine Creatures 1

Black Forest, Germany 1591...

Dimitri Heinrich

Dimitri was frozen, unmoving. Over thousands of years as the Executor for his pack, nothing he had faced had prepared him for the horror surrounding him. His always-sharp brain struggled to process what not even his worst nightmares could have conjured.

The pack would not survive another blow like this. Less than a year ago, more than a half of the pack had completely vanished. In one night, the pack had gone to sleep complete and happy, only to wake up the next morning to chaos. Dozens of women and children disappeared inexplicably, without a trace, no signs of a fight or any messages left behind.

Initially, the shock led them to a fleeting hope that the women had come together to hide themselves and the most vulnerable pups, fearing persecution they had been enduring from the humans who had turned against them. The attacks began after a notorious murderer tried to escape justice by claiming to be a werewolf. Stumpp*1 believed he would be acquitted, proclaiming that his actions were a part of his animal nature and therefore beyond his control.

The only thing the sick human achieved in turn was to break centuries of trust between the pack and the local population. In the blink of an eye, where there had been friendship and respect, now distrust and fear had replaced these things. A community that had kept the pack secret from the rest of the world while the pack maintained local security was now the source of the danger. It didn't take long for the hostilities to begin, and soon the pack retreated and isolated itself completely in the heart of the forest.

It seemed like a reasonable idea to imagine the women evading an imminent threat, but as the days went by without news and the endless scouts' hunts failed, they couldn't deny the evidence any longer. Something else happened, something sinister, and they had lost almost all the women and children they had.

Wolves with missing mates had the worst impact. They were unable to accept that something bad had happened because they felt no threat or pain through the bond between mates. However, they also could no longer feel the bond. It had simply faded away, but without the expected pain when a mate dies, it felt like it had never existed.

It was their disbelief and inability to reconcile with the idea that these women and children were lost to them that kept them in this cursed forest. Even with their leader's incessant attempts to persuade them to seek a new shelter, the majority were opposed to leaving the woods, hoping that their loved ones would soon return.

And they lost everything because of their foolish hope. All Dimitri could see were bodies and more bodies. In different stages of transformation. Some in human form, others as wolves, and some even in the powerful intermediate form. But nothing had been enough to stop what had taken place in his village. Everywhere he looked, he continued to see bodies... or rather, corpses.

Nothing remained of the idyllic village by the stream that he had always called home. Most of the cabins were now completely destroyed or still burning with a fury that seemed to match the dark mood of his pack brothers.

The eerie glow from the smouldering cabins added to the eerie atmosphere in front of him, and he remained fixed in the same spot in a trance-like state. All those carbonized bodies belonged to the few females and pups left of his pack and to the sentinels who had stayed in the village to protect them.

The scream of utter horror finally broke through the fog that had been engulfing him, and he found himself trudging towards the source of the sound.

There were plenty of screams and cries on this macabre night, but that terrible whimper, a mix of wailing and howling, belonged to his friend, and Dimitri only knew three people in this world who deserved that distinction.

His hands, which had never before trembled in battle, trembled at the prospect of the scene he knew he would find. Of all his friends, Severin, Sev as he was known, was the only one in his inner circle who had a mate. Anna was a fierce red wolf, just like her flaming curls, robust yet graceful as her name suggested.

Sev and Anna were expecting their first pup. The elder Oma*2 had predicted it would be a male and that he would be an extraordinary wolf with an important future. But judging by the massacre around him and the agonizing howls coming from his friend, he knew even before seeing or sniffing that the old Oma had finally erred in one of her visions.

Shaking his head to dispel the incoherent thoughts of the moment, he quickened his steps. But before reaching the source of his immediate concerns, he saw his pupil and friend Noah on the periphery of his vision, approaching at supernatural speed to the spot where Sev was prostrate on the ground.

The blow would be much worse for Noah. Dimitri loved Sev, but Noah had an almost supernatural connection with the couple. Anna always treated Noah as part of the family, despite being only three springs older than the feared Executor; the she-wolf had an almost maternal instinct toward his apprentice, and Sev adopted him as the younger brother he never had.

Noah was an orphan; his parents had been murdered by a clan of bloodthirsty vampires. The mistreated and traumatized pup, after being rescued by his pack, spent more than a year in his wolf form. Many feared he would never be able to shift back to his human form.

It was the love and care of the couple, already inseparable since adolescence, that kept the sanity of the little puppy, who eventually healed and integrated into his new pack, all the way until he became its fourth in command.

He reached his target, and to his deep sorrow, he realized that he was not wrong in his earlier prediction. Sev was in what used to be the centre of their village, near where the large bonfire was lit every night, where the pack used to share meals, hold meetings, parties, and countless other moments.

A place that, in his mind, always represented joy and the sense of community of his pack. Now stained by the blood of their women and children, and in the centre of this carnage was Sev, prostrate over Anna's lifeless body.

Noah hugged his friend with such force, as if he were afraid that Severin would disappear, while looking around blankly, as if his soul was gone. He was certain that the same expression was reflected on his face, and if he bothered to look around, it was probably on the faces of the entire pack.

Sev rocked back and forth like a lost child while Noah cradled him. In Sev's bloodied arms, he could see Anna's violated body, as if a savage beast had turned her inside out. He could see the misshapen mass of entrails where the round belly of the she-wolf used to be.

Something sickening coiled around his heart. Only Anna's face was intact, as if the perpetrator of this sickening massacre had deliberately spared the beautiful face in order to make it possible to recognize the owner after being eviscerated.

Regrettably, this thought was not as illogical as he would have preferred it to be. With the strong odour of burnt bodies and the foul scent of death, not even lycans with the keenest sense of smell, like his own, a tracker's, could analyse and separate the different scents.

The smell that emanated was so vile that the very Earth seemed to contract with disgust. And the fact that something as calculated as leaving a face untouched to be recognized, amidst all the other mutilated and torn corpses, beyond any recognition, made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end with apprehension.

To someone less attentive, this would seem like a vicious attack, committed by minds beyond reason. Lost to hatred, revenge, fear, or any other emotion capable of blunting reason. But Dimitri was not the second in command for no reason.

A shiver ran down his spine as he contemplated the wreckage of his home. With a sense of purpose, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that they would find those responsible for these atrocities and make them pay. But with the same certainty, he knew they would never find the real mastermind. Unless this mastermind wanted to be found.

A cold and calculating mind, one that knew exactly the amount of pain and distress, combined with the right dose of mutilation. This would make it impossible even for the most powerful lycans to use one of their strongest gifts, the sense of smell.

That such a mind had intentionally left Anna's face untouched spoke of a calculated attack, not a destruction by the hands of incoherent beasts. That this being had left Anna, specifically, recognizable among the entire pack, left him more uneasy than he would like to admit. And some sixth sense that could not be explained in words told him that this was somehow connected to the disappearances of the previous year.

He heard confident steps approaching before feeling the hand of his alpha and best friend on his left shoulder. "They slaughtered all the women, not even the puppies were spared. Only the old Oma survived, and she hasn't spoken a word since we found her, completely traumatized."

Dimitri turned to look into the pale blue eyes of his alpha. Ulrich's eyes were clear as the morning sky, but now they were almost gray, reflecting the storm within the man he loved like a brother.

"The message was clear, no female capable of conceiving was spared," his friend spoke in a tone monotone and devoid of warmth. "I should have foreseen this, I should have ordered our retreat and moved the camp to the Carpathians as I suggested after the beginning of hostilities," he finished in a whisper that sounded more like a prayer.

Ulrich maintained a stoic demeanour, but Dimitri could clearly see the change. His best friend had died this night along with his people; in his place was a shell of what had once been a cheerful and optimistic man, a dangerous shell on the verge of exploding.

"No one could have predicted this, Rich, and you came close by warning us of the possibility of another attack after the disappearances. But no man with a missing mate and pup would have followed you, and you would never have left the rest of the pack divided and even more vulnerable," Dimitri concluded in a conciliatory tone.

"That was my mistake; I should have imposed and not proposed," he said, shaking his head. They were all tired and in shock, and in different stages of grief and despair. "Did you see my brother?" Ulrich asked, with a hint of emotion appearing in his voice for the first time since the conversation began.

Typical of his friend, always worrying about his brother, even in the midst of chaos. He wondered if it would not have been better for everyone if the weasel had perished with the rest of the victims, and immediately felt guilty of the thought.

No matter how much he detested Pankraz, or the pain in his ass on his mind. His friend deeply loved his brother, and he was the only blind spot in the otherwise astute leader, who seemed incapable of seeing any evil in the buffoon-excuse of a wolf. And with all the pain and repercussions they would suffer from this night, they needed Ulrich more alert than ever.

They could no longer rely on Sev's advice, the third in command. It would take some time before Noah was able to function rationally. This left only Ulrich and him to deal with the reigning chaos. Pankraz's death would only further destabilize their alpha.

"I was told he's with the old Oma," he said, masking his disgust. He felt more than he saw Ulrich's sigh of relief. He shook his head to rid himself of petty thoughts; he needed to focus on the here and now. This would be a long night, the longest of their lives, and his alpha and his pack would need his strength and command. But he feared they would never recover from this blow, that this could be the beginning of the end. Still, if that were the case, he would ensure that at least they would achieve vengeance for the horrors committed against his family.

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*1 Peter Stumpp = On October 31, 1589, the 50-year-old farmer, originally from the German town of Bedburg, was tied to a cartwheel, where his skin was removed with hot pincers, and his head was cut off before burning his body at the stake. Stumpp's head was then mounted on a wooden pole carved in the shape of a wolf, displayed as a warning to others tempted to associate with the Devil. His shocking crimes included multiple murders and cannibalism. Of the 16 people he killed, 13 were children, including his own son.

*2 Oma = from german Großmama / Großmutter, an affectionate term, "granny" or "grandma" in Portuguese, used in an endearing way for elderly ladies who are dear to the community.