A Werewolf's Saga, The Beginning (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets Book 3)

by Michael Lampman

  He smacked it hard with his face and chest. He now knew what happened when he heard Devish coming from behind him just over his right ear. He even felt his cool breaths as he spoke.

  “Did you really believe that would work on me, brother? Did you really think that I was that foolish to fall for something like that?”

  Kalima growled, realized that he could once again see the eyes at the back of his mind, so he called them forward and brought on the change.

  Devish pushed his head harder as he felt his flesh sliding beneath his hands. He couldn’t stop it—he couldn’t stop the wolf from coming again, so he just let go.

  It took only seconds for him to change. It took another second as he turned and charged.

  Devish prepared himself for the onslaught, and he was right. He plunged in to him like a truck slamming into a brick wall.

  With all of his rage, he pushed.

  Devish’s paw slipped across the stone tiled floor. He tried to dig in to it with his nails, but couldn’t pierce the stone. He just kept sliding until he crashed through his throne chair and banged in to the wall behind it with a thunderous clash.

  Kalima made sure he struck it hard enough to break the stones.

  They did break. A few even broke completely from the plaster and fell to the floor. Dust flew all around them, covered them, and sprayed.

  Devish couldn’t move. His brother had him by the throat with one powerful hand and by the shoulders with the other. His mighty legs were pinned against his with his knees pressing his thighs. The strength he showed him was impressive. It even surprised him with it.

  “You are strong when you are angry my brother.” He tried to pick his head up some to look him in the face, but he couldn’t even do that. His brother just squeezed harder when he tried, so he stopped after he felt this. “You are so much more than what you have already showed me.” He grinned with his fangs.

  It looked more like a grimace. It actually was from the pain.

  Kalima snarled. He eyes squinted and his snout curled.

  Seeing his anger, he could only imagine what he was thinking. He hoped he could. He wanted to hear his rage. He wanted to hear his tears and pain. He wanted to feel all of it.

  “You can still join me brother. You can still give me your gifts. I deserve them, not you. I should have had it. Father should have given it to me.”

  Kalima squeezed his clawed hand tighter around his throat. He wanted nothing more than to tear out his spine. He squeezed to get what he wanted more than death itself.

  Devish could not fight back. His strength felt overwhelming. He actually felt his breaths starting to grow shorter. He was also beginning to fade.

  43

  Rochie ran in to the foyer.

  He saw the staircase and ran past them to the back of the building, but saw someone, or something, moving at the top of the stairs.

  He stopped and ran back to them, climbed them, and headed to the second floor.

  Rana was there. She was kneeling over an obviously blood splattered body wearing a yellowish tan colored dress. He recognized the dress. He recognized Sima.

  Rana heard him come behind her and she stood up. Whatever had unblocked her mind was gone again. The block had returned and she didn’t even know it. All she knew was that her brother was there. She saw him and her eyes went to their deep Wanderer blue.

  Rochie saw her eyes, and immediately felt her power grip his body hard. He froze where he stood. He couldn’t ask her anything. He didn’t have the chance. All he knew was that she was not his again.

  “Rana, please do not do this.” He watched her stand and then watched her face him. He saw the blankness on her face. He saw the anger for him. He cringed with all of it.

  She moved up to him and only stopped when she was close enough to feel his breaths on her face.

  “You have come here to destroy him.” She felt the rage. She felt his disloyalty. She felt the need to protect Devish.

  He blinked and let his eyes turn blue. Behind her, he felt wood lying on the floor, near the doorway to Devish’s room, and with it, he felt for a single piece and lifted it up in his mind. He knew what he had to do.

  “Do not make me do this. You can return to what we were. I can tell you why I had to do what I had to do.” He pleaded with her. He still felt hopeful that she would turn back to him, but now, feeling her grip him tighter, he knew it was becoming hopeless all the same. She wasn’t going to give him the choice.

  He was right. He felt his feet leave the floor.

  “I will never return to you. You will pay for what you did to him.”

  He truly cried as he gripped the wood, what turned out to be a leg of a wooden chair, and flew it forward in his mind.

  The leg, jagged and broken on the end facing her back, went in.

  It struck her hard through her right shoulder and protruded from her chest.

  The pain rocked her mind. It made her power fall, and it spilled her to her knees. She didn’t scream. She just folded and collapsed.

  With her broken, he felt his body as his again.

  Able to do so, he rushed her and went down to his knees in front of her. He took her by both shoulders and held her face to his with both hands.

  “I am so sorry Rana. I am so very sorry for doing what I had to do.” He let the tears come, but they didn’t last long. The sounds of a gasping breathing came to him from his left. He looked in through the doorway there, and saw Kalima holding Devish to the wall. He saw Devish’s feet dangling off the floor. He saw the black wolf’s hand around his throat.

  “Kalima, do not do it.” He stood back up. He moved in to the room and stepped behind the black wolf. He now held his breaths. “If you kill him he will never be able to let Rana go. We will also need him to establish the truce.”

  Kalima heard him, and just answered him with a snarl. He then growled. He squeezed his throat tighter.

  Devish wailed with a strong bellowing moan. “You hear him? Kill me.” He gasped. “Take my life and give me what I want.” He knew what the others promised to the humans. He knew what the stakes were. With the girl bleeding and down on the floor, he heard everything again. He now knew that only his death would destroy their bargain. His continued life would do the same.

  Kalima watched his eyes, and brought his snout closer to his brother’s face.

  “That is it. Kill me. Take my life and you will never have her again.”

  The wolf always acted on his instincts. It was all he knew. Seeing his eyes, seeing the rage and the pain within them, Devish thought he had his answer. He was about to prove to him how much of an animal he really was. Right at that moment, right by his eyes, he knew his death was about to come.

  Kalima was stronger than his brother had ever known.

  He relaxed his grip. He let Devish fall back to his feet.

  Devish felt sad and yet relieved.

  So did Rochie when he saw him release his throat. Maybe he is not an animal after all.

  Devish felt ashamed as he watched the beast turn his back to him.

  “What are you doing? Take my life. Take it and be the animal you were meant to be.”

  Kalima looked back at Rochie, looked down at him, and their eyes met.

  Rochie watched their yellow color fade to brown.

  Kalima let his human eyes come back again.

  Devish watched his black fur vanish back into his white and pale skin. He watched the beast disappear, and with it, he took his chance.

  “NO!” he screamed out with a high hissing sound that boomed all around the room. He rushed out, and grabbed Kalima by his shoulders. He lifted him off his now human feet. “You will never live as I do!” He pulled.

  When he did, when he turned to throw him, something cool struck his chest. A heated pain followed the feeling and it pierced his heart. It raced through him, and forced him to look down.

  A round piece of obvious wood was now sticking out through his chest. He felt it exit between his shoulders.
It looked like a leg of his very own chair. It had to be the one he broke. He ordered a new one built, but he didn’t order them to clean up the other one. Now seeing a piece of it through him, he didn’t know what to think. In some ways, he felt relieved. It seemed that he helped in his own death.

  Rochie turned at him and saw the blood. He saw the wood. He didn’t do it, so he looked back to Kalima.

  He felt him release his shoulders, and turned around just in time to watch Devish fall to his knees. He felt shocked with this too. He didn’t possess such a gift.

  Rochie saw this in his eyes. Who did it? He looked back to Rana and saw her still sitting on the floor. He looked to her left, behind her, and saw Sima lying there and not moving. Not seeing anyone that could have tossed the leg, he looked back at Devish.

  The blood continued spilling from his chest. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t talk.

  The blood pooled down and around his knees. When it stopped, so did he. He fell forward in to the pool of his own blood.

  Kalima didn’t watch him fall. Instead, he moved slowly out to the hallway and went to his daughter’s side. He knelt down to her and brushed her black hair from her eyes.

  Her eyes were closed. Her mouth was shut. She wasn’t breathing. Her once beautiful face looked smashed and still.

  He cried himself into her chest. He knew, this time, she was truly gone from his life.

  Rochie watched him, felt saddened for him, and turned back to the door.

  Someone else was now coming up the stairs.

  Kenar told him who it was.

  He watched Sharlia come to the door. Michael was behind her, and Jameson was leading Kenar by the arm.

  He couldn’t see again, and he didn’t know why. No longer hearing Sima in his mind told him the worse. It was all he knew.

  Rochie saw this too.

  “What happened?” Sharlia asked first. She saw Kalima on her right with his lifeless daughter and crying to her chest. She saw Rana sitting on the floor. She saw what looked like wood sticking through her right shoulder and chest. Rochie stood in front of Devish who was lying on his chest and face. The same looking piece of wood was holding his head off the floor. The entire room was beyond quiet and still. It felt so misplaced.

  Rochie just took a deep and heavy breath. “That will take a lot of time to explain.” He put his hands on his hips. He felt cold, but yet relieved. It had been one hell of a night.

  44

  They talked for hours, as they tried hard to piece together everything that happened. The good part about it was that the peace held. Devish was not dead. Wood through the chest would only keep his heart from beating and his body from healing. He would otherwise still be alive just in a dormant state without blood in his body. It was good enough for the Walkers.

  Without him, Rochie gave his sister a new set of memories. With Devish’s block still on her, he didn’t have the choice. He knew that one day she could return to them, and it would change everything about her forever, but now was not one of those times. Until it was, he would take care of her the best he could. It also meant that she could help him hide Devish. He agreed to be the one to help keep the truce, as Kenar knew he would.

  Kenar and Devin, who was healed by the Walkers of his broken and shattered legs, would get out of history’s way for the most part. They agreed never to take a side again. It was the price they agreed to pay. They left that night, and disappeared until they were needed again.

  Kalima was offered the leadership of the council of Elders for the Walker world, but he declined. He had lost too much, but agreed to keep out of the world. No one argued with him. The Walkers still feared him, but Rochie and Kenar spoke for him. They let him go with his daughter and return to the shadows.

  The world now turned. The humans gained the day, and let the Walkers possess the night. The great families led by Michael and Sharlia, controlled the calm of the Walker world. In time, the humans built great civilizations until one day; the Walkers had vanished from history and had become nothing more than myths and legends to the humans. The Walkers grew to accept this. In fact, they helped them do it.

  As for the black wolf, time would lose him too. Eventually all forgot about him. He also became myth and legend. A shadow that one day could return to haunt the Walker world. They feared him. They feared what he was.

  The world then turned.

  The nights and days turned into years, and then into centuries. A quiet peace and calm settled over the world until one day, out of nowhere, the black wolf roared back to life.

  After he did, the world would never be the same again.

  My Journal

  I left for good that day. I buried Sima in the same place as I did my wife. Together, they will look out for each other. Together they will stay. It was hard for me to leave them, but I did not want their memories broken because of me. I did them wrong enough.

  I headed south, made it over the sea and then headed west. I wandered, keeping to myself. I stayed out of the way of everything and everyone. I preferred it that way.

  I stayed in the lands of the great eastern river for a long while, and during that time, I decided to begin keeping this journal. It helped me to gather my thoughts. It helped me to understand many things.

  The first of these was why did I let Devish live that day, over a thousand years ago. What I learned was that I do not know. A part of me believes that I let him live only to give the world what it needed even though I know that someday, he would return to it again, but another part of me believes that I did it to honor my family. I preferred this second thought. It makes me feel human somehow. It makes me feel alive. It is funny how the mind works, even for me. In the end, I simply do not know why. In the end, I really do not care. He will return. He will come back. It just does not matter why.

  After another long time, I finally left the east and headed back home. I found my homeland completely changed in ways that does not look real. The humans have spread out over the world in ways that I do not think even the Walkers saw coming. They have cornered this world, and have slowly reshaped it with stone and wood. They have reshaped it with towns and cities. They have made it like nothing I had ever seen.

  I arrived to find my family still there. I had learned that a woman bought the land and has held it in trust as a natural preserve. I do not know who this was, but I thank her for it. It kept their graves undisturbed, even though they are unmarked. I know they are there. I can feel them as they rest.

  After another long time, I have found myself growing old. I have found myself losing my strength. I now believe that it is time. It is time to move on. It is time to start again. I left England and headed to the Irish coast. I do not know what I am looking for, but I will know it when I find it. After some searching, I now believe I have.

  His name is Timothy Collins and he has pain. He has loss. He has exactly what I am looking for…

  The Saga continues with The Puppets and the Strings…