Crusaders II Cards Shuffled 6.2

1.          Moscow, Russia

The Russian Orthodox Church headed by the Moscow Patriarchate also known as the Orthodox Christian Church of Russia, is a body of Christians who constitute an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Moscow, in communion with other Eastern Orthodox Churches. The ROC was often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world second only to the Roman Catholic Church in terms of numbers of followers. In recent times, both church have warned up in their relationship, but there are events best left hidden from the mass.

Geraldine and her newly appointed squire were flown in by private jet and land at a private airfield. It was a large tract of land with trees and streams on it outside of the Moscow district. They were met by an Orthodox member and driven in an old Russian sedan. They were heading toward the Manor building. There they were met by three old members with their frocks and hoods in the Manor Library. Both Geraldine and her squire were wearing the dark brown overcoat over their casual wears of the jeans and jungle boots. The older men did not hesitate to introduce themselves but they went into the details.

"The black book used to belong to our archive; updated every time we ave new information. We were so used to recording it manually but we did not ignore the advancement in document recordings. We just enhanced it to include our memories. We have a photographic memory. We scribe down all the details here."

The older man handed over the contents written down from the memories. It contain events, names and personal details like age, sex and also preference.

"Who are they?" Geraldine asked.

"They are the abnormals; the in-humans as you called it. They are some like wolves, or blood drinkers. Whoever took that list wants it badly."

The serenity of the Manor was shattered by the calls of the wolves.

"It ain't even the full moon and we are in the outskirts of Moscow." Geraldine muttered out. She reached into her slung bag and pulled out the 'sai'. The four priests moved into a secured room which they termed as panic room. Clawler walked to the glass door of the Library and looked out to the tree lines.

"Siberian wolves.." Clawler make out the words from his mouth. Then he growled.

"Clawler, stay calm. They moved in packs. I need to find the leader. If I can defeat the leader, the rest may go away." Geraldine then moved to the glass door and walked out towards the tree lines. Clawler followed Geraldine closely behind; flexing his muscles and moving his shoulders to and fro.

The wolves came out in a row, all seven of them. The Siberian wolves are a beautiful creatures; a silver furred with a fierce reputation. The wolves stopped at about twenty paces from Geraldine. The leader in the middle walked out of the line and approached Geraldine. Its a big creature with a length of two metres from head to tail. Its showed its long fangs when it widen the lips. Geraldine pulled out both her sai and jabbed them into the ground.

She did tell Clawler to stay calm but she forgot the basic command; stay.

Clawler jumped over his mistress and sink his claws into the Siberian wolf. Clawler had removed his overcoat and shirt while walking over. He had also transformed to his other self, and now rolling in the grass with the wolf. Clawler has a larger frame and he uses his longer limbs to leverage on the wolf. He kicked out with his legs to throw the wolf off balance before he rushed in again with the extended claws. He lashed out with his claws; cutting into the fur and grabbing the wolf's limbs. The Siberian wolf fought back hard and scored a mark on the Clawler' face.

That annoyed the Clawler who attacked back with more ferocity, and sank his right hand with the extended claw into the neck. Then he pulled out the flesh inside with the heart intact and threw it to the other wolves. They shied away and then the killing instinct of the wolves override their fear. They went for it like any killings.

Clawler dragged his body off the dead carcass and walked back to the Manor. While Clawler cleaned up., Geraldine met up again with the priests.

"Why are the In-humans so much of a concerned on the Church here?"

"They are like any others. Another sheep in our flock; be it white or black. Be it three legged or four, we are concerned on them. We placed them on the list so that we can pray for them to come back to the main flock. We bear no ill intent but the authorities liked them for other purposes. There were cases of learning them, but we never condone it."

"We have been the subjects of experiments for ages; be it medical or otherwise. But the ones who took it was not of interest of the well being of the in-humans, but to recruit them into army of theirs. They are waging a war against us. And the rest of the world."

"How did you know?" Geraldine asked.

"We been monitoring them and some we had brought back to the flock despite their infliction. They told us of the recruitment. It has been happening for sometime."

"Which ones?"

"The werewolves. The Lycan are raising their own armies to battle the vampires, and then the rest. There is a new war and their new leader calls for the war to end all war."

"Who is the leader?"

"They called it Fenrir."