The Wolves of London Book 2: The House of Striker

(Chapter song ‘Somebody I Used Know’ by Three Days Grace)

AVERY

I hit the keys on my lap top and watch the picture on the monitor turn around, flip and split into eight levels. I bite my lip as I stare at the fortress.

I lean on my knees and lace my fingers together. “What are you hiding, Miranda.’ I whisper to myself.

“Hey. I got it.”

I look to the door of the abandoned house we're hold up in. We've gone into hiding for two reasons. One. What’s on my computer was not easily gotten, and I’m sure they know. Second, going to Zen was a mistake.

Not a mistake to see her. I really wanted to tell her why I did what I did, but what I didn’t realize that by doing so, word got out. I’ve had three attempts on my life so far and I have a feeling Zen, and what’s on my laptop, are connected.

Basically, when I was out searching for a cure, I came across a group of shifters. I wasn’t in good health at all. What was eating me was getting larger and I didn’t have much time.

Back then, I had the same mindset as Zen. I’d die first, but…

****

‘Why should I trust you?’ I break into a coughing fit and sit down on the bench.

‘Don’t believe me. I don’t care. But you have knowledge. Knowledge we need. We can give you you’re life back, but you need to give us Miranda.’ Razor flips her hair over shoulder while two other stand around me.

‘Why me?’ I look to them all. My sunken eyes blur every once in a while. The pain in my chest makes me wince.

She leans to see my eyes. ‘One. You’re a hunter. A good one. We know you, Avery. Two. You’re not bat shit crazy. Again, we know you. Three. Once you hear why, you'll want to live.’ She glances at her men, then me.

I cough again and my chest feels tight. ‘I’m listening.’

****

She walks to the small kitchenette and puts a pizza box on the table. “Dinner.” She mumbles.

“Thanks.” I say quietly.

She tucks a large book under her arm and walks to the council. “Still pining?”

I look at her quickly. “No.” I turn back to the image on my screen. “Just worried about this thing. You think it’s true?”

She holds up the book. It’s brown leather. Big. Legal paper sized. Very old. “Where?” I point to it.

“Don’t ask.” She pushes my laptop aside and sets the book down. “Back in the mid 1900s, a group of people got together. We believe this was the first human council led by William Striker. This group eventually became the official Cleaners, though they existed way earlier.”

She opens the book and there’s columns in old ink. I pull the book closer. “Registry?”

She nods. “Striker was collecting monsters. We believe for something he called ‘The Liberation’.”

“Liberation? That's in the training packages for new hunters, but it wasn’t about collecting monsters. William Striker was always saying that humans had to be on top. The liberation was a plan to unite the species and stop the wars.” I inform.

“On the surface. Underneath…” She lays a finger on a column. “It looks like he’s just documenting right?” I nod. “Look closer.”

I read the words ‘shifter', ‘vampire’, and a bunch of other creatures. Some have names beside them. The next columns have a bunch of numbers, and the last columns have ‘collected’, ‘not found’, and ‘dead'. I point to a creature name. “What's this?” Beside the name and others randomly is (Z).

“We didn’t know at first until we found this.” She flips through the pages and stops. She lays her finger on the page.

I read the list where she’s pointing. My brows go up when I read what I did. “Zayden. Zayden Maximus…Z…” I tilt my head. “Zeta?”

She nods. “Yep. All those marked are Zeta Alphas of their own breeds. Look at the destination after capture.”

I scan the row. “Liberty.”

I slowly turn my head to the building blueprint spinning on my computer. “Why there?”

She shuts the book, gets up and walks to the table. “There were rumors. Some even traveled to the states as people came off the boats.” She grabs the pizza box and walks back. She drops the box on the book and opens it to a pepperoni pizza with pineapple.

I raise my brow. “Really?”

She points her slice to me. “Don’t get me started on the pineapple debate.” She takes a dramatic bite and chews.

I shake my head. “You were saying.”

She puts her slice down. “Ok. The rumors we heard ran through the shifter circles as a warning. But some of us believed they were just stories to scare people. I mean, who’s going to believe that there’s a secret society of humans running a long game on the planet.” She types on my computer and pulls up an old picture of a man with an old look to him. Posh, firm chin, and clean cut except a really dumb moustache. “I didn’t believe it, until I started to confirm the rumors. William Striker was pissed that the creatures... Us… were eating them. He joined the High Council to make friends and stop humans from being harvested, but he was lying.”

She pulls up papers. “These are the purchase agreements for the land that ‘Liberty’ is under. He used High Council influence and resources to get it done so that no one would suspect him. William bought the land, hid it from everyone, and construction started in 1914. The beginning of the first would war. With Europe distracted by Hungary and Germany, Striker could move without question. The construction took 10 years, and no one was allowed inside. The construction workers didn’t even know what they were building. These blueprints we hacked off a main frame from one of the other labs in America are the only things we have to know what we're up against.”

“Ok. So what’s the rumor?” I ask.

“William wasn’t just collecting creatures. He was building an army.” She says as she locks with my eyes.

“I don’t get it. Why do we care now?” I cinch my brow.

She folds her forearms on her knees. “That’s the rumor. This army… it still exists.”

I huff a chuckle. “Wait. Are you actually suggesting there’s a 100 year old army in that building?”

“I know how it sounds. The story is he built the army, and figured out a way to preserve it. Last week, we think we found out how. At least, partially.” She types, and pulls up a picture of the Sorcerer’s high council. “This man. Windum Redrick. High Elder. Very skilled and a complete dick. He has no problems in breaking rules. No one will challenge him, so he thinks he’s above the law.”

She scrolls down. “Before all this, there was a sorcerer turned bad. He and a group of others tried to take the council over. He also was a High Elder. In fact, he was the first. Windum, with a few others, fought the man and trapped him. Windum has a unique skill of being able to turning any inanimate object into a soul trap. Back in the 1800s, he taught a few human entertainers and one assistant. The entertainers are dead now, but the assistant is alive and well.”

“Who is it?” I ask.

“Dorian Black.” She flips to a picture of Dorian black with Windum and… “Striker.” I whisper.

“Striker used Windum services to preserve his army in something. I don’t know what, but I think I know who might.” She mumbles with a mouthful.

“Dorian.” I turn to her.

She nods. “We wont ever get anything out of Windum, but Black was there. He's on the high council with the Strikers, and he is the only living person, besides Windum, who knows about Liberty and what’s in there.”

“There’s Zayden.” I state. “He was a prisoner for how long?”

She shakes her head. “Zayden never made it to Liberty. We believe he was supposed to be the first that Striker collected, but that never ended up happening.” She picks up her pizza and bites it. “We don’t know why.”

I glance at the computer. “That’s why you need Miranda.”

“She knows. She’s the head of the snake and I believe this army of Striker’s is the body. But she can’t get them out.” She says.

“Why not?”

“Striker wanted to make sure his army could only be controlled by humans. Not just any humans. Someone from the House of Striker.” She takes a breath. “Striker hid them well. The Foundation spent years looking for it. In the last eight months, movement through the labs we have on watch has increased. Miranda had teams searching them endlessly. Last week, they all descended on Liberty which leaves me to believe that’s either their last check, or Striker has the army locked up in there and they just found it.”

“Wouldn’t we have seen it by now? What’s she waiting for?” I reach to the pizza box, pick off the pineapple, and lift my piece out.

She shakes her head. “None of them have the right key.”

“What?”

“When he went to the sorcerer, he had him use blood magic for the lock. In order to unlock it…”

“You need Striker blood.” My jaw falls slack.

She nods. “The door or lock or whatever is holding the army back needs Zen’s blood. And if that army is anything like Zayden… Avery. They’ll eat the entire world. One word that kept coming up was ‘Leviathan’.”

“No. How?” Leviathan from the mythical age were creatures that the Titans made to win the war against Zeus. But they were too uncontrollable, and they ate everything. Didn’t matter what or who. Fearing the loss of war, Chronos locked them in Tartarus. “Striker made his own version of Leviathan? How? What does that mean?”

“You just need to look to Zayden for answers to that. We hacked a few facilities in the states. One in particular was offline a few years ago, but then came on our watch list. Lab 12 in the Midwest. Miranda had a team check it out, but that team never made it out. There was something in there, but we couldn’t get close to it. So we hacked the systems, and found a lot of information in it, including what they did to Zayden. Then we found out that it was Zayden in the lab. He escaped from it which prompted us to start watching the rest of the labs more closely.”

“Did anything else escape?” I ask as in chew.

“No. Not yet. I believe Zayden is the only one outside the lab. It looks like Zayden was a way to show Miranda what Striker was doing and what his soldiers would look like. She's repeating the Striker experiments.”

“Striker was hiring scientists like he was starting a fan club. He kept documents of weird experiments of DNA manipulation. My belief is, he was kidnapping creatures like us, and experimenting on them to make this army of Zaydens. With an army like that…”

“The supernatural world is dead.” I finish.

“Everyone’s dead. Now, Miranda is having the Cleaners collect creatures for her own army, but with all activity, it looks like she wants the original experiments, too. And Zen is the key to that. Her blood will open the cage that we think Miranda just found. If they get to her first…” She starts as I get up and grab my coat.

“They won’t. If I keep her with me, they won’t get to her.” I stand. “You’re absolutely sure about this.”

“100 percent. Where are you going?”

“To convince my ex - who hates my guts - to put her life in my hands.” I stride for the door. “I just hope she doesn’t shoot me again.” I groan as I walk out the door.