Chapter 1 Ch 1

The night is dark and full of terrors. I thought about this as I watched the street from the lonesome rooftop of an old bar downtown. Two weeks ago, this place would've been packed with people singing bad karaoke and spilling their hipster craft beers. Now it was desolate. Like much of what was left of the city.

Down in the street below me gathered four werewolves talking amongst themselves. Fortunately, I'd learned their noses couldn't stiff me out if I was at a higher elevation than them. It was something I had learned quickly. If I hadn't, I would've ended up like everyone else.

Dead. With my guts spilling out on the street for black-winged squawkers to later peck at and starving alley cats to devour.

The evening was already quiet, so I was able to pick out their voices from three floors up.

"He's coming," one of the wolves said.

"Not tonight!" chided another, a woman. "Tomorrow morning. Your sources are weak AF. Don't believe him. Last week, he told us Basileus was coming when those bastards used some guns and mowed down some of the pack. He didn't come then, did he?"

"Well I said he was coming, didn't I? The timing may be a little off but I still called it. Who's a dumb bitch now, Bri?" the first speaker taunted in a fake voice.

Basileus was coming. The name that made all knees tremble, human and wolf alike.

I remembered the first time I heard that name. It was rolling across the bottom of the television screen in my apartment with the daily news. By this point, homes were already getting ransacked and people were being eaten in the streets. I didn't know what the hell the monsters were. I'd seen them but never up close. So I had turned to hiding in my loft apartment on the fourth floor of an old building. This was hours before the power grid went out in every city across the globe.

Then there was the picture of Basileus climbing up the side of the damn White House. Massive and full of hair. Behind him, closer to the camera, were dozens of Secret Service agents strewn across the manicured lawn. Dead. Just like everyone else. Just like the President and the Vice President and all their fucking cabinet members within the following hours.

It was because of this that my original understanding of Basileus was some badass assassin in a monster costume. I mean, real monsters didn't exist. But then I came to discover more information. After I was forced to flee my loft under invasion, I was taken in with a group of other survivors hiding out in a parking garage. That lasted for a few days. I found out from them that this Basileus thing was a creature and his minions were werewolves.

More bullshit, I thought. I didn't want to believe that the dark blurs I'd seen take down groups of grown men were werewolves. Those were fictional beings from books I read as a teenager. They weren't real.

But, by God, they were.

They ate everyone from that group. I only managed to escape because I found an unlocked car. Even then, I doubted the magnificence of this Basileus person. Werewolf? Probably not. But powerful? Hell yeah.

From then on, I was by myself. I found this rooftop bar three days ago and had been lucky enough that there was food. My plan was to stay until the food ran out and then it would be bouncing to the next building.

But I felt like I needed to change my plans after listening to the wolves down below. If Basileus was coming here, I couldn't just stay. He would find me. I felt certain of it. This whole damn city would be under the scrutiny of his perfect werewolf vision. As little as I had to live for these days, death was the biggest. I had to live for death so it wouldn't find me.

Some skittering sound on the next block distracted the wolves under me, who took off after it. Their human forms leaped into masses of muscle and hair, muzzle and claws. They seemed like such simple-minded animals. Always chasing a shadow or noise. It dumbfounded me how they could have turned the planet into chaos so quickly.

I retreated to the part of the rooftop covered by a giant cabana where the bar was. The night was cool for late summer, so I curled up on the makeshift mat I made behind the bar from couch cushions I stole from office lobbies in the floors below.

My mind never fully shut off anymore. I'd become an insomniac in the last few weeks from fear and anxiety. So even though my eyes closed and my breathing slowed, part of me was always listening.

Waiting.

—(—)—

Sharp points of light poked through my eyelids. At first, I thought it was the morning sun. Sitting up, I heard low voices. The points of light swung away from me and across the bar. I realized it was a flashlight. Tensing, my mind raced and woke me straight up. I pressed my back against the bar with a silent gasp.

Shit! Had they already seen me? My eyes blinked against the darkness to adjust. I must have only been asleep for a few hours. Heart in throat, I edged towards the corner of the bar to peek around it. The voices continued whispering amongst themselves.

It was two men. One was flicking the flashlight around nervously while the other looked over off the roof as I had done. I couldn't tell if these werewolves or humans. They looked to be dressed in clothes, which usually indicated they were human. But the wolves had walked amongst us in clothes before and we never knew it.

I knew not to trust anything anymore and make decisions only when I knew what I was dealing with.

"He'll be here in a matter of hours," spoke the watcher. "Seems like the worst of them are here, don't you think? We've hardly found any humans. I'm afraid they've killed them all."

The other man shook his head. "Damn. Did you know he would do this to us? Did you know he wanted to kill us?"

My brain was struggling to identify who these men were. Werewolves? Or men? I grimaced in pain from my squatting position but held my ground.

"I didn't know his plans until he came back," the watcher answered without looking away from the street. "He is the King. I never doubted that. But something happened. He lost his mind while up in the celestial."

It seemed like I was dealing with two druggies. Their species was still unclear but I assumed the only people who knew about celestial realms were angels and druggies, and these men weren't impressive enough to be angels.

I rose a little from my crouch to take the weight off my knees. Everything was pretty shot from always running everywhere. In my effort to be soundless, I brought my foot back and knocked my mat back. It hit the wall with a slight scuff sound. I jumped. The men whirled in my direction.

"Fuck!" I hissed and took off towards the door.

They were already in hot pursuit, but I managed to get inside and halfway down the hall. A stale odor of fried food and salt powdered the air, rising up from the old carpet. One of them grabbed me. Lifted me off the ground.

"Shh!" hushed the other. "They're gonna hear you! Hey, shut the hell up!"

I wasn't screaming though. Just thrashing around and grunting. At his words, I stopped. The man holding me placed me gently back on the ground. Though I couldn't make out their faces in the dark, one of them opened his eyes. I shrieked. They were glowing silver.