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Every strike of lightning made Elijah's heart race a little faster. The flashes were as bright as the overhead lights in the operating rooms where he spent most of his childhood, and he could swear he saw the faces of the men and women who hurt him staring back at him through his reflection in the car window.

He stopped glaring out at the forest and focused on the road ahead. They were approaching an intersection. "Turn right," he muttered, pointing to the road which led up into the mountains.

Jake turned right and followed the steep hill up to a narrow mountain road, and the further up they got, the pouring rain quickly turned into snow.

"W-what if they're hurting her?" Jake panicked, glancing at Elijah.

"Just concentrate on the road," the demon muttered.

"What if we don't get to her in—"

"We'll get to her in time if you stop talking and drive," Elijah snapped, sharply turning his head to glare at him.

Jake shuffled around uncomfortably and fixed his eyes on the road. Then, he took a deep breath and said, "We'll get her, right? W-we'll catch up to the van, and then you'll do some sorta cool demon thing, and everything'll be fine." He glanced at Elijah. "It'll be fine, right?"

With a deep sigh, he glowered at Jake.

"Sorry. I just...." But he didn't finish his sentence. He started slowing down as a worried frown struck his face.

Before Elijah yelled at him, though, he saw what Jake was looking at. Twenty yards up ahead, the black van that took Zoe had slid off the road and collided with a tree. It was smoking, and the doors looked like they'd been ripped clean off.

"Pull over," Elijah insisted.

Jake quickly parked a few feet from the van. "Is she there?!" he asked desperately as Elijah got out of the car.

The demon unzipped his jacket in case he needed to reach for his guns, and as he approached the van, he looked around cautiously. But to his frustration, there was no sign of the girl or the catchers. There was a burned corpse in the snow, but it was male, and possibly one of the catchers.

Where was Zoe? Where were the other catchers?

"What the hell happened?" Jake exclaimed, standing beside Elijah.

Elijah peered inside the back of the van, searching for the slightest clue that might tell him what happened or where Zoe was. The van walls were lined with silver, which explained why he couldn't locate Zoe's aura once she was taken. He spotted a syringe on the floor—it looked like the one they used to drug Zoe—and picked it up. When he sniffed it, though, it burned the insides of his nose.

And the harrowingly familiar smell sent a terrifying shiver through his body.

"What is it?" Jake asked.

"Surripio," he snarled, chucking the needle as far as he could.

"What's surripio?"

He stepped out of the van and examined the outside of it. "A sedative. It weakens a Caeleste so much that they struggle to stay conscious. Wherever she is, she's not going to last long out here."

Jake huffed worriedly and started looking around, leaving Elijah to check the driver's seat—

"Elijah!" Jake then called.

He backed away from the van so that he could see the pardus.

"Look," he said, pointing at several boot tracks leading into the snowy forest a few yards from the van. "It's gotta be them, right?"

Elijah sighed and hurried back to the car. He took his duffel bag from the back seat and held the strap over his shoulder. Then, he hastily led the way into the woods as Jake quickly followed.

"It looks like something caused them to crash and Zoe took her chance to escape. The other catchers are probably on her trail, and it's going to be hard to see anything in this storm," Elijah said. "I can't track her while she has the sedative in her system, either. It's got microdoses of silver."

"Can't you pick up the catchers' scents or something? I know demon senses are a lot stronger than a lycan's," Jake asked as they moved deeper into the woods.

"I'm trying, but something's interfering with my ethos," he muttered, following the scattered footprints.

But when they reached a small opening in the trees, the footprints were all over the place and overlapping with each other. The snow had covered most of them, and in whichever direction Elijah looked, he couldn't make out any other tracks.

He snarled in frustration, looking left, right, and forward. He attempted to search for her aura with his sensory ethos, but it reached no further than a few feet. It was like there was some sort of invisible barrier blocking him, and it wasn't just his ethos. He couldn't hear as far as usual, nor could he smell anything other than Jake and the pine trees surrounding him.

What was causing it?

"I-I think she went this way," Jake suddenly said.

Elijah set his eyes on him. He couldn't see anything that might indicate someone had gone the way he was pointing, so he moved closer.

"That looks like Antonio's fur," he said, reaching towards a tuft of fur hanging off a dead bush.

It did look like a piece of Zoe's dog's wig-like hair. So, he moved past Jake and headed in that direction.

"Do you think she's okay? M-maybe she found somewhere to hide?"

Elijah glanced at Jake's worried face. He didn't want to panic him even more by being honest. Zoe was evidently a city girl; the only time she'd probably seen the outdoors was on television or through the windows of cars and jets and whatever other fancy shit she used to get around. Someone like her wouldn't last very long out in the woods alone, and with people chasing her, her chances were much thinner.

However, she'd managed to burn one of the catchers despite having surripio in her system, so Elijah hoped that she was able to find someplace to hide and wait for the drug to wear off. "We'll find her," he told Jake. "Even if the catchers get to her first, their van is fucked. They'll be on foot, and I hunt much better on foot than I do with a vehicle."

Jake took a deep breath and nodded. But then he frowned again and looked up at Elijah. "Okay, but that guy at the store said that those catchers take people up into the mountains to that lab...and we're in the mountains. What if they get to the lab first?"

He was right. They had no idea how far the lab was, and he didn't want to risk the catchers finding Zoe and getting her there on foot. "Let's pick up the pace," he muttered, starting to run.

But Jake lagged behind. He wasn't as quick as the demon; however, he evidently understood that and morphed into his leopard form. Now he was able to keep up and raced by Elijah's side as he led the way through the thick forest and up the steep hills.

The ominous feeling of eyes watching him suddenly hit Elijah, and when he glanced to his left, he saw something dark shift through the storm. He looked right and saw several other blurs moving inside the pouring white, and once he reached the top of the hill, he grabbed Jake's scruff and came to an abrupt halt.

"Something's following us," he said before Jake could screech.

As he pulled free, Jake looked around cautiously. "Catchers?"

Elijah squinted and watched as at least ten six-foot-tall creatures circled them inside the storm. A strong wind raced by, carrying upon it the scent of wolf walkers. With an irritated snarl, Elijah reached for one of his pistols—

A huge black wolf abruptly pounced from the storm and landed five feet in front of Elijah. It growled and glared at him as its packmates moved closer. Jake whimpered, the wolves snarled, and Elijah glowered into the black wolf's green eyes, waiting for it to make a move.

But the wolves didn't attack. While who Elijah presumed was their Alpha stood in front of him, the others circled them. If they wanted to kill him and Jake, they would have done it already. What were they waiting for?

"Should we kill them?" came one of the wolves' voices.

"Kill the pardus," another snarled. "It's trespassing on our land!"

"Wait," the black wolf snapped, glancing at the brown one behind it.

"We're not a threat," Elijah said.

The black wolf's eyes suddenly widened. "What?"

"We're not a threat. We're merely passing through," the demon said.

But the wolf looked confused—they all looked confused and stopped prowling to gawp at him.

"Our companion was taken by some men—catchers," Elijah explained calmly. "We think they came through this way."

"He speaks to us?" a voice called.

"How?" another followed.

The black wolf frowned at Elijah. "How do you speak to us?"

Jake moved closer to Elijah. "I-I don't like this."

Ignoring him, Elijah frowned in return. "What?"

"You can speak our tongue," the black wolf said. "How?"

Elijah wasn't sure what he was supposed to say. Why were they so confused? He'd always been able to speak to and understand lycans in their animal forms. Jake hadn't been confounded, so why was this wolf?

"How?!" the wolf snarled, moving closer.

The demon swiftly pulled his pistol from his jacket and pointed it at the wolf's face. "I'd think twice if I were you."

With a quiet growl, the wolf backed off. "There aren't many who can communicate with our kind while in our true forms. Who are you?"

Jake moved so close to Elijah that his tail rubbed against his leg. "Dude, what are we doing here? What's the play?"

"Shut up," Elijah snapped at him.

"You speak to the pardus, too?" the brown wolf behind the black one questioned. "You possess True Speech?"

Elijah had no idea what that was, but he'd go along with it. "Sure."

"Alpha?" the brown wolf exclaimed as the rest of the wolves grouped up behind him.

The black wolf backed off and lowered his head. "Forgive my rudeness."

Every other wolf lowered their heads, too.

Jake frowned as he turned to face them. "What's going on?"

Elijah didn't know. As much as he might like to know what True Speech was and why the wolves were bowing to him because of it, there wasn't time. "Did you see an orange-haired girl come through here? She might have had a dog with her."

The wolf walkers shot several looks at one another.

"A demon?" the black wolf questioned.

Elijah nodded.

"We saw her, yes. There were four men in pursuit. We've had our own dealings with these hunters. Are you here to stop them?" the black wolf asked.

"I'm here to find the girl and kill the catchers so they can't cause me any more inconveniences," Elijah answered. But then he asked, "What do you know about them?"

The black wolf frowned. "They hunt lycans and demons and deliver them to the lab in the mountains for money. They've been doing it for years, which is why we retreated into the forest. Some of us once lived in the town in the valley, but it's no longer safe. The people in that place have taken to accepting their bribes to lure travellers in. They set up traps in the roads to incapacitate their vehicles, and when travellers head to the mechanic, the woman informs the catchers of any lycans or demons."

Elijah clenched his fist as he lowered his weapon. He should have known there was something suspicious about all of this. It was a little too coincidental that their car broke down so close to that town, and that Zoe was snatched while he was waiting in the mechanic's office. Why hadn't he pieced it together before?

He was getting distracted. "Where did the girl go?"

The black wolf looked at the brown one. "Luell will take you to the ridge at the edge of our territory. That was where we last saw her and the catchers. It will be hard for you to track anything out there; the mountains are full of vendite."

That explained why Elijah's senses were all over the place; that metal was powerful enough to mess with not only ethos but electronics, too.

"Did the catchers have her?" the demon asked.

"No, but they weren't very far away. That was why we didn't apprehend her."

Elijah nodded. "Thank you."

"So?" Jake asked desperately. "Can you let me in on this?"

It was only then that Elijah remembered that lycans couldn't hear each other in their animal forms unless they were in the same pack. Jake had only been hearing his side of the conversation. "They saw Zoe. Luell is going to lead us to where they last saw her," he explained as the brown wolf moved closer to Elijah.

"Be safe, and may the Moon Goddess watch over you," the black wolf said.

"This way," Luell called as he walked past Elijah and started leading the way deeper into the forest.

"Let's go," Elijah said, glancing at Jake.

As the afternoon got later, they followed the brown wolf, who navigated the thick woods, crossed a shallow river, and took them up another steep hill. When they emerged into a glade, the storm calmed, and the snow fell lightly, making it much easier to see more than a few feet in front of them. That was when the wolf slowed down and glanced back at Elijah.

"How do you know True Speech?" Luell asked.

Elijah sighed and said, "You're going to have to tell me what that is."

"What?" Jake questioned.

"I'm talking to Luell," the demon told him.

"Oh."

Luell frowned at him. "You speak it, yet you do not know what it is?"

"Obviously."

"It is the language of the Ancients," Luell said.

Elijah had never heard of any Ancients. "Yeah, I've spent most of my life in a cage, so I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Forgive me," Luell said. "I didn't mean to offend you."

"I'm not offended, I'm confused. Can't all demons speak to lycans?"

Luell shook his head as he led them across the glade. "Only those with the blood of an Ancient or an Ancient themselves."

"What are you guys talking about?" Jake asked eagerly.

"I don't know," he grumbled. "True Speech and Ancients."

"Yeah...Zoe never really did explain all that stuff to me well."

Elijah looked down at him and frowned. "She can talk to lycans in their animal forms, too, can't she?"

Jake scoffed. "Obviously."

The demon's frown thickened. There were a lot of things he didn't know or understand, and he hated feeling as confounded as he was right now. Was Luell saying he had the blood of whatever an Ancient was? Did Zoe have it too? Or was she an Ancient? What was an Ancient?

"What's an Ancient?" he grumbled, sure that they were both going to look at him like he was stupid.

Jake gave him that exact look.

However, Luell answered, "The oldest beings alive. Several demons, three wolf walkers, and the scions."

Once again, Elijah was clueless. If this information didn't seem like something that might help him understand more about what and who he was, then he'd give up and stop asking. But he wanted to know what he was besides sangdevoro, and he wanted to know where he came from. Could understanding exactly what True Speech and the Ancients were help him?

"Can you tell me more about the Ancients?" he requested as Luell escorted them back into the trees.

"My knowledge is limited to family stories and rumours," Luell said, glancing at him. "However, all wolf walkers know of Fenrisúlfr, a wolf walker god. He is centuries old but lost to the world. No one knows where he is. Scions are very hard to find—"

"What's a scion?" the demon questioned.

"The ethos-born offspring of a Numen."

Elijah knew what a Numen was. That word floated around the lab a lot when he was younger. "The children of gods?"

"Children crafted from ethos," Luell said with a nod. "And as for the demons, all I know is that one is sangdevoro."

Something electrified Elijah's heart. He wasn't sure if it was hope, angst, or fear. He was that species of demon, and it made him wonder: could this Ancient be connected to him somehow? Was that a longshot? He wasn't sure, but right now, a part of him felt like he was getting a little closer to answering some of the questions he'd had since he was a kid.

"Where can I find them?" he demanded.

Luell laughed quietly. "If I knew that, I'd probably be dead."

"Find who?" Jake blurted.

Ignoring him, Elijah asked Luell, "Why?"

"The Ancients are very secretive. No one knows their names or faces, and anyone who does is either dead or working for them," the wolf answered. "I'm sorry I can't be of any more help. But I do hope that you find what you're looking for." He stopped walking and nodded at a ridge on the other side of a steep, log-filled ditch. "This is our border. I can't take you any further. The girl was seen crossing the ditch and then disappeared into the trees," he explained. "And be careful. These forest mountains aren't just home to wolf walkers."

Elijah nodded. "Thank you."

"If...you want more information about the Ancients, I can speak with my Alpha. You can find us on your way back."

"I appreciate it," the demon said.

Then, Luell turned around and hurried off, leaving Elijah with Jake.

The leopard stared expectantly at him. "So...are you gonna catch me up? What were you two talking about?"

With a quiet sigh, Elijah started carefully stepping down the steep slope. "It doesn't matter."

"Come on, man. I might be able to help. You were talking about the Ancients, right? Is that who you want to find?"

He didn't answer.

"Why do you wanna find them?"

"You don't need to know," he snarled.

Jake scoffed and followed him across the logs at the bottom of the ditch. "Why are you so damn secretive?"

"Because it keeps me alive," he growled, glaring at him. "The more you two learn about me is potentially the more Lyca Corp. learns. We're already out here trekking through some fucking forest to find Zoe so that she doesn't blow up my entire fucking plan." His anger was breaking through his focus, but he couldn't help it. He was wasting time out here; he could be in Flinnwick by now hunting Ronan, but no, he was out here trying to save some stupid girl.

"We'll find her," Jake said like he was trying to assure him. "She's probably close, right?"

When he reached the top of the hill, Elijah stared down at the vast forest below. It spread for miles, and there was no sign of a building. Although the distance meant he could be searching for much longer than he liked, it also meant that he had time. The lab wasn't anywhere to be seen, which had to mean it was beyond the forest.

"Look!" Jake called.

Elijah sharply turned his head to look at him and saw him holding his paw out towards faint smoke coming out of the trees not far from them.

"It could be them!" the pardus insisted.

There was no way for Elijah to tell, but he wasn't going to ignore it in case it was Zoe. So, he nodded and hurried down the ridge with Jake, heading towards the smoke. He hoped he'd find her so that he could be done with this chase and get back on track, but there was a part of him that felt as though this was just the beginning of what was going to be a long, draining chase.

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✧ Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the chapter! ✧

♛ What was your favourite part? ♛

✟ Do you think the Ancients are connected to Elijah somehow? ✟

✙ What do you think they'll find when they reach the smoke? ✙

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