The Wolves of London Book 2: The House of Striker

(Chapter song ‘Travos Revelation’ by Ed Harrison)

AVERY

“Walk!”

The lady with the leopard print pokes my back with the tip of a dagger and I jump forward. I scowl as I look over my shoulder. “Watch it.” I growl.

Her canines drop, as she opens her mouth and hisses.

I look forward and watch Zander with Leon and Oliver walk into the house.

“Got anything?” Zen leans to me and whispers as we enter the front lobby of the pack house.

“Nothing. I was hoping you did.” I whisper back.

“Quiet!” She shoves my back and I shoot her a look.

“I don’t know what these guys want, but the last thing we need is another cosmic weapon on the board.” Zen says as we enter the basement.

“You know. The guys down here won’t be scare of you." Oliver says as he pushes the code for the lab.

“Your animals don’t worry me.” Leon reports.

“Tell us what the weapon is.” Zander demands.

“It's old. Older than us. It will correct things.” Leon says as we enter the basement.

“It's Cosmic.” Zander states.

“Yes. A lost weapon that if it were to fall into the wrong hands, it could destroy the cosmos and everyone in it.” Leon replies as we enter the lab.

Zander narrows his eyes. “Why are you so concerned about the cosmos?”

“Because I am. Sector 6.” He motions his head to the elevators.

“There’s nothing down there.” Oliver insists.

“Just go.” Leon narrows is eyes and Oliver shakes his head.

We get to the elevator door and step onto the car.

“Bottom floor.” Leon instructs.

Oliver press the L6 button and we ride it down to the lowest level in the section. We step off and start to walk down the hall straight ahead.

Oliver points to the right. “We found stairs that lead to floors 7, 8, 9 and 10, but that’s it.”

“Did you check the security office on this floor?” Leon asks.

“No.” Oliver admits.

“Come with me.” Leon says darkly.

“How do you know so much?” Zander asks.

“I get messages. Have been for decades.” Leon admits.

“Wait. You received messages from inside the painting?” Dorian asks.

Leon nods. “We heard and saw everything outside the fabric wall. We just couldn’t reply. But the messages we received showed us the outside world even if it was dark. We were afforded the most important of world events as we travelled through time. But we also learned of William Striker's true nature and why he chose us. What he did to us was torture, but we couldn’t touch him in there. He was protected. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to kill your grandfather.”

“You’re welcome?” Zen arches a brow then looks at me. I shrug and shake my head.

“What messages is the weapon telling you?” Zen asks.

“How to find it.” Leon confirms. “The obstacles in our way. Everything.”

“How?” Zander asks.

“I’m a Zeta.” He says as we walk around a corner to an office marked ‘Security’. “The one who helped William complete his experiments on us stole the weapon and hid it here some years ago.”

“When?” I ask as we follow him inside to a small office with camera monitors, buttons, phones and computers.

“We aren’t sure. I just know that she did it because it’s a very powerful weapon that could be used against her and her labs. I am also not the only one looking for it. But it speaks to us because of who we are.” Leon walks to a back wall and stairs at a bookcase.

“Uh… What now, Simba?” Oliver crosses his arms.

Leon looks the case over, grabs the side of it and with a lions roar, pulls the case off the wall. Electric wiring snaps and sparks fly as dust and books fly through the room.

We all yelp and duck out the way as the case crashes into a couple of desks, shoving them to the other wall.

“Ok. That was unnecessarily dramatic.” Dorian scowls.

“He’s a cat. Of course, he’s knocking shit over.” Oliver scowls at Leon who eyes him.

“Look.” Leon points to the seemingly solid wall.

Oliver steps up to it. He looks around the wall, then places a hand on it. “I don’t see anything special…” He stops talking.

“Oliver?” Zander steps in line beside him.

Oliver rolls his head to him. “He’s right. There’s something behind here.”

“How do you know?”

“I hear it.” He taps the side of his head.

“What do you mean ‘Hear it’?”

“Stand back.” Leon instructs then waves the very large man with silver gray hair over to him. The Zeta struts to the wall, assesses it, then balls his fists. He raises them above his head and brings them down hard on it. The wall dents on impact. He repeats a second time and chunks fall off the wall framing it as it bends in more. His third hit rips the door off its track and it bends into the space behind it. He grabs the edges and bears down as he shoves the door out the way. The metal creeks and groans over his growls as it’s slowly bent in.

Oliver leans to Zander. “You’re paying for this.”

“We'll see.” Zander snorts.

The king of apes backs off after finishing enough to expose a hallway that’s lit up like the rest of the lab.

“What the hell?” Oliver steps through the hole, turns, and pushes his sunglasses up onto his head. “A hidden door.” He scowls as he points to the inside wall.

We all walk through and see that he’s pointing to a keypad on the inside wall. Ahead of us is a metallic hallway like the rest of the lab but this one feels different.

“Down here.” Leon shoves through and takes the lead.

We walk down the hallway and into an area like the observation room in Liberty. It’s filled with the same desks and computers. It’s almost like this was the original part of the lab upstairs and it was built around the same time.

Leon looks out the glass. “Down there.” He points.

We all line up in front of the window. Down below is spiraling stairs and metal walkways. Metal bar cells and other labs line the floors. These don’t look like the lab under the pack house.

“You see what I see?” I mutter as we look out to the space beyond the glass.

“What came first?” Zen asks quietly.

“I think we found the mother of Alliance labs.” I conclude.

It makes sense. William was helped. If Miranda and the foundation did help him, they got the tech of the time from here. However she did it, Miranda started this and is the key to all of it.

I lean closer to the glass and see something on the bottom floor, but I can’t really know for sure. Like a large shed. It’s lit up with spot lights and it looks heavily secured.

The lady dressed in black wraps, walks to a computer and punches the keys on the keyboard. After a minute, she looks to Leon. “It’s safe.” She confirms.

Krestin points to the woman and looks to Leon. “How did you…”

Leon taps his temple. Krestin looks to the woman and she taps the side of her head, too.

“Ok. This is getting really creepy.” He eyes them both.

“Let’s go." Leon says deeply and squints his eyes. He grabs Oliver and shoves him forward. “You will open the room.”

“Man, I will tear you apart if you keep touching me.” Oliver spins around and gets in the cat shifter’s face.

Leon tilts his head and his face shifts to more lion-like features with huge canines. “MOVE!”

Oliver’s stone face looks him over. “Fine. Don’t spill your kitty litter.” He scoffs and turns down the hall. Leon’s chest vibrates as Oliver open the door to the facility below. “Eh, Zan. You got a feather on a string. Leon needs a happy place.” Oliver smirks over his shoulder as Leon glares.

“Oliver, shut up.” Zander groans.

Oliver cackles as our boots hit a metal platform. We look over the rails and across the width of the space. It looks like the other side is 100 feet away. There’s nothing on the ceiling except large round lights that light up the center of the column. Our footsteps echo off the walls as we walk across the platforms and down the stairs to the lower levels.

The place looks like a prison. I look in the cells and they have the same feel. Cot, wash basin, mirror. Everything you'd expect in a single person cell. Clearly, they were cleared out years ago. There’s evidence that the cells were being used, with stale sheets and random things stuck to the walls, but no actual evidence of bodies anywhere. “Why do you think they left Zayden and this weapon here, but took everyone else?” Zen asks.

Zander was about to answer, but Leon interrupted. “They were too complicated to move on short notice.”

“Short notice?” I question.

“Yes. Some years ago, a vampire escaped a facility. The foundation chose to hide instead of find the creature. I believe that was your father’s doing?” Leon says to Oliver’s back.

“How could you possibly know that?” Oliver glances at him with snark.

“The messages.” Leon says.

Zander stops Leon. “Ok. These messages seem to be in more detail than you should be afforded. You were in the painting.”

Leon nods. “The messages I receive are in great detail as this foundation is watched closely. Any action is recorded.”

“By who?” Zander crosses his arms and Leon walks away.

As we descend to more lower level, I start to see a building in the middle of the bottom floor. “What is this place?”

“I’m not entirely sure.” Oliver starts. “But if it’s separated from the lab, this does have my father written all over it. A lot of the labs had separated areas for high profile experiments. None to this extent. See the guns?” He juts his chin up to several guns on all the platforms from the top all the way to the bottom.

“Why so much fire power?” I ask. “I thought we were after a weapon.”

“Precisely.” Leon looks over his shoulder.

“What does that mean?” I side eye him.

He looks straight ahead and says nothing. We step down a steep set of stairs until we see the room we saw from the top. There’s nothing special about it. It’s a cinderblock building about 15 feet by 15 feet with a single metal door, and on the wall is a scanner.

“Open it.” Leon demands.

Oliver turns and scratches his temple. “You know. I’m not convinced I should. Maybe if you…”

Before he could finish, Leon backhands his cheek which pushes Oliver’s head to the side. Oliver wastes no time and throws at left hook back. Leon catches his fist and squeezes, sending Oliver grinding out pain to his knee.

“ENOUGH!!” Zander shoves the Zeta back and Oliver scrambles to his feet holding his hand.

Leon pulls a gold dagger from his belt and places the tip under Zander’s chin. “OPEN THE DOOR!” His voice booms up the column of metal and stone.

Zander looks at the dagger, then up to Leon’s eyes. He turns to Oliver. “Open it.”

Oliver glances at Leon and his lips shrink. “You better know what you’re doing.”

Oliver walks to the scanner and places his hand on the black panel. “I don’t know if this will work. I only changed the security up there.”

“It'll work.” Leon says.

He fixes his hand to line up and immediately a blue scanning line runs down his hand. The panel turns green and air is released from the door.

He removes his hand and looks it over as it begins to slide to the left. “Huh. The whole security system is run from upstairs. Interesting. A huge flaw. But… interesting.”

The door disappears into the wall and Oliver’s brows go up. “Oh… um… Shit.”

“What is it?” Zander looks him over as he walks away and scrubs a hand down his face.

Zen walks up to the door. “Uh… Zander?” She waves him over without taking her eyes off the room.

“Holy Hell.”

“That's an understatement.”

“Is that…”

“How?!”

Zander pushes his way through, sees what we are, and whips his head to Leon. “No…” His face fills with shock. “I don’t think so.”

Leon lifts his chin. “Step aside.”