Eyes of the Serpent

AN: No reviews... :(... Makes me wonder if I have more than a couple avid readers here with this....Please review, please feed me, even if it\'s just "Cool, keep going, I like it!" This tells me I have more than a couple readers. This is important, because it encourages me!



--------------



Remmy raced out of the den on all fours without much of an issue. Not many wolves knew he was locked up, and getting in the way of Ironpaw\'s betas when the other one tore past a moment ago wasn\'t exactly a wise idea. It wasn\'t a wise idea in any situation. It was well after sun down when Remmy arrived clear of the front door of the strange abandoned mansion, and the moonlight which struck his fur managed to refill his energy so to speak. But, the risk in town was huge. If anyone spotted him, even in this average looking wolf form, he would create mass panic, as the nearest forest was quite a way away, not to mention that he was much larger than your run-of-the-mill forest wolf. In any case, the large male fawn colored beta wolf didn\'t remember any of this, and in his rush to save the life of the High Wolf, he ran his massive wolven figure straight towards the sharp but dwindling scent of Highear - which was leading him back down the long driveway towards the outskirts of town - and deeper.



The similar scent to his own coat led him ever closer to the sleepy section of town belonging to the elderly. It was one of those fifty-five plus areas, evident by the flamingos and garden gnomes lining the rhododendrons and hydrangea bushes. But, why was Goldfleece fleeing this way? Did he even know Highear was after him? Maybe it was on purpose - if anyone saw anything, no one would think twice if a few elderly humans vanished.



Remmy slowed to a trot, lowering his nose to the ground. The scent was slowly being washed away in the wind, and even though he\'d been not more than a minute behind him, the weather was fighting against him. It seemed like the scent simply cut off somewhere nearby, but where--



"Puuuuppyyyy!" exclaimed a tiny sounding voice, as a small pair of hands attempted to wrap around his face. His eyes flicked quickly upwards, and he resisted a yank of his head - a child had grasped him. His first thought was \'oh shit\' as he froze in place. Every sense tightened along with his muscles, and let out a gentle growl in hopes to scare her off his face. She was a blonde with very curly hair, and had bright green eyes. She wore just a simple little blue dress, and was the cutest thing he\'d ever seen - of course, he thought that about every child he saw.



"Oh honey leave the puppy alone, we need to get home, it\'s way past your--" an older voice rambled on, then suddenly stopped short as her eyes fell on exactly what puppy the child had found. She had been rattling around in her tiny little purse for whatever, but the second she saw Remmy, she stopped. "...That\'s not a puppy, Lilly. That\'s a really big wolf, and he\'s a long way from home..." she spoke slowly, in a happy tone. Obviously, she thought that drivel actually worked on wild wolves. The whole happy voice and slow movements meant about as much as gibberish to a wolf. "Get away from the wolf, Lilly...He\'s hungry, okay?"



"Noooo puppy. Woofyyyyy!" the small child cooed. She must only have been about two, if that. He couldn\'t help but smirk inwardly at the innocence, but she was coming between him and a life he had to save. Gently, he pushed the girl backwards and off his face, which resulted in her flopping backwards on her diaper. She blinked a couple times as Remmy backed up with his head low, then started to cry. His ears perked up at the sound of it. The girl who was taking care of this child, who wasn\'t much more than sixteen herself, skipped ahead to pick up the child off the road.



"No sweety, shhh, crying will make woffy angry. Shhh!" she spoke, running her hand through Lilly\'s gold locks. Remmy\'s head was just over eye level for the sixteen year old, and yet, she tried her hardest to not seem afraid, and was trying very hard not to just turn and run. He blinked, and wondered what they were waiting for. Did he have to scare them off? He shifted over to the side of the road, and began to growl low at them, showing his teeth like he was supposed to. "See? Shhh-hhh, you\'re making the woofy scared too." her eyes never left the wolf - and it was clear she wasn\'t moving until he did. He inwardly groaned; she must have been a girl scout or some such nonsense. If that\'s what they were teaching kids about wolves, then his kids would never be made to enter scouts. He cut off his growl, and decided he\'d simply have to loop back as soon as they were far enough away.



But, the growling never stopped - and at the same second, both the teenager and Remmy\'s eyes shifted off into the same direction - a lone pair of glowing, yellow eyes from between two houses. Highear. The larger gray wolf slowly slid out from the darkness into the street light, which caught his fur, and made him glisten like silver.



"You\'re too late, Lightfoot." he spoke, masking his words with a deep growl. His eyes never left it\'s path, staring with deadly intent at the child. The teenager gasped, and began backing up slowly.



"This isn\'t happening..." she whispered, clinging tight to Lilly. "I go to one party on sitting night, and there\'s a goddamn pack of wolves in town...Please don\'t let us die..." she whispered. Remmy shot her a grim expression, and flicked his attention back to his larger brother.



"Leave them be, they are innocent. She doesn\'t know anything." Remmy began to move between the humans and his brother. To the girl\'s ears, their words would sound like a strange pattern of growls and the occasional letter, almost like an odd dog-talk. They\'d used it so often that it made sense to them; but humans would not understand.



"I don\'t know that. YOU don\'t know that. They must die, it\'s the law. Besides, you\'re not here for them - the one you came to save is dead back over there. BROTHER."



"I\'m here to stop you - whether that means killing you, or not. But this doesn\'t have to involve them."



Suddenly, Highear launched himself at the slowly retreating teenager with a deep growl. Remmy snarled, and flew after him. Amidst screams of the teenager and the child crying her loudest, Remmy managed to slam himself headlong into his brother\'s side, and latch his teeth on the back of his neck. Stunned from the impact, Highear fell over, and the two slid a little. But it didn\'t even take a half second afterward for him to react, and rip his own teeth at the side of Remmy\'s throat. The sounds of gnashing teeth, barks, and growls, echoed across the silent city street, and bounced back at them in a thousand directions. It was a little disorienting, but in the flurry of the fighting, it didn\'t really matter. The two twirled around on their hind paws, looking just like two wolves fighting - only Highear was beginning to transform into his bipedal form. It was now or never; if he turned, they\'d be forced to eliminate the humans; the secret could not get out, even Remmy knew that. But he was convinced this human thought they were just wolves, and their lives could be spared.



In a second, the whole fight was over, and the large gray mass of Highear fell atop Remmy. Teeth ground into throat, and with a high pitched whimper, the wolf was dead. Neither figure moved for the longest moment, and the screams of the girls had ceased - only to stare on and wonder which one had won, when finally, Remmy muscled his way through. The girl froze in terror, and stared at her. Remmy flopped down on his stomach, exhausted. The moonlight grazed his fur and kept him from losing form, but it wouldn\'t last forever. He needed to eat something, whatever he could find, to keep him in form. Everything weighed on it.



"Hey Lilly, looks like the woofy was trying to keep you safe. Let\'s go home now, huh?"

"Tankoo, wooooooffyyyyy!" Lilly called, as the teenager began back up the road - this time, at a jog.



Remmy watched her vanish on the horizon before he set on the flesh of his brother. It was all there was to eat.