Whisper

by P. S. Power

  “I understand that you can only do what is allowed under your laws and rules. I’ll have to alert the others of this however. Unless you’d like to do it for me? That way it will seem that you are, at the very least, willing to aid us when troubles arise. These men should be watched. After all, it might have been a reaction to me that caused them to act so harshly. That can and has taken place before, though it didn’t seem like it at the time. I’m not infallible, so making certain this is a pattern and not a chance meeting of disaster is perhaps the better part.”

  Liam had to think about some of the word choices, even if he thought he understood most of what was being said.

  The FBI agent got it as well, it seemed.

  “Right. I can pass the word on that. We’ll need to get an I.D. on the specific police officers, somehow. Let me see what I can work up that way. Um…” She seemed at a loss then, her eyes landing on the slim tome that Liam had been reading from. “You have some ideas for the meeting tomorrow?”

  He actually did and while part of him wanted to know a lot more about Oaks and his life, now that he wasn’t a troll any longer, a lot of information had already been passed to him. Enough that he was going to need several days to think and study about all of what had been suggested already. Also, to speak to Mary before investing too much time in what had been said, in case it was incorrect.

  There was no need to lie to Liam that he could see. It didn't mean it might not happen anyway.

  “I do have ideas.” He whispered then, his voice projected as well as he could. It was breathy while being nearly as loud as what most people used to speak with. The only trouble with it was that he had to take a new breath every six to twelve words, which broke his sentences up oddly.

  He opened the handwritten book and tapped it on the correct page.

  “We need to take a gift of food for each group leader that is going to be there. Even the ones who aren’t werewolves. It doesn’t have to be much, though it should be something that can actually be eaten by that leader. So meat for the wolves, blood for vampires and whatever is correct for anyone else that is coming. Only the leaders though. It isn’t expected to bring food for everyone or anything like that.” He moved a little further along in the book, turning several pages, then tapping again.

  After a moment Brenner got up and grabbed a pad and pen from the side table that such things were stored on and started to write. She didn't interrupt him, so he went on. While he did that, Oaks watched him closely. As if he was performing a skill or doing a trick to amuse or teach someone.

  “At the meeting, we need to come in with written documentation of everything we wish to present. No one will call you a liar if you don’t have that, they just won’t believe you as easily. Even if it’s just your own words written down, it should work. That is, maybe, more of a trick than a rule. Charles, the werewolf that wrote this seemed to find it useful. We also need to be slightly early, since that’s the tradition of those kind of people. So, the meeting at seven should be arrived at by six-thirty at the latest.”

  Brenner made quick and efficient writing sounds, then tapped the yellow writing pad with the back of her ball point pen. The scent of the ink was familiar to him, since he was used to using such things himself.

  “Got it, we’ll need to hit a store then, before we go in. I’ve read that before. It just hadn’t occurred to me that taking a gift of food was something that I needed to be doing for them. I’ll make some notes for the meeting as well. You should do that too, Liam. I’m not really certain why you’re being invited. Probably not to force you into a fight with Vern or his people over what happened. They do have the concept of trial by combat, but Vern more or less broke his own wrist by their rules.” She glanced at Oaks and then explained the whole thing, if quickly.

  “Um… Vern the werewolf was upset and took Liam as a hostage, holding a knife to his throat. Sanchez had Liam pull that away, which meant that Vern just switched the blade to the other hand. Or tried to. It didn’t work, Liam being too quick for him. When they wrestled for that, they fell, landing on Vern’s wrist pretty hard. The thing there is that…” Before she could end the sentence, Oaks interjected.

  “That this Vern is a werewolf? They are quick to use force but will lay blame on the one who started things at a much higher level than most of the rest of us would expect. I agree, they wouldn’t invite young Liam to attempt to harm him over that sort of thing. What their intent, is, given that, I do not know. Best to be careful, given that. That no one should attempt to go for you means that it is the best time for it to be tried.” The words sounded wise, if nothing else.

  As if they spoke of long experience and deeper things than Liam was going to be able to understand that evening. There was a buzzing from the other room, shortly after that, and Brenner got up, coming out with the freshly laundered clothing, those being loosely folded and draped over her arm. Oaks, standing as he had been for a while, bowed slightly as he moved over to take the things.

  “Thank you, Agent Brenner. May I call on you and young Liam here again, sometime? I fear that I have much I wish to say, even if I can’t for the life of me figure out what that is at the moment. I should also get in touch with Ms. Stein. From the sound of it, this latest development is going to be most aggravating to clear up. It’s nearly impossible to work with the human government on anything of note, inside their system. Not always as difficult to do so with individuals, however.”

  That was for Brenner, who nodded and waved the man back up the stairs, so he could change. That didn't take long and in the silence, Liam went back to his studies. After all, there was so much to work on just then. It was tempting to start looking up all the new words he’d heard in the last hours. Instead he waded back into the books on werewolves.

  After all, the morning would come soon and while he badly wanted to find out about Oaks, calling Mary would need to be done while the woman was awake. That meant waiting.

  Which could be filled with useful things, given he had all the tools he needed for that, right there.

  Chapter twelve

  While Brenner wasted her life lying in one place, occasionally dreaming, Liam took the time to prepare for the meeting of the next evening. Not that he knew for certain what would be going on at such a thing. From the bit he could work out, mainly from the fiction novels that Tiffany had in her secret cupboard of books and lore, seemed to be leading him toward the idea that Vern was lodging a complaint of some sort.

  Possibly against Liam, even if that didn’t seem likely based on what everyone had told him. The books had a different story there, since each of the three fiction novels he’d looked at had scenes that involved challenges. Some for power within the pack or society of wolves. Others simply when one party felt aggrieved for some reason. It was closer to the full moon, though not within ten days.

  That meant Vern wouldn’t really be unreasonable due to his being a shape changer. Anger and rage was a side effect of being a wolf, for some reason. When Liam looked it up, reading quickly online, wolves, as in the natural canine creatures didn’t seem to be all that aggressive compared to other animals. People feared them, but that was due to them being large enough to pose a real threat to humans. Nothing more than that.

  Which probably meant that it was the man portion of the wolves that caused them to become upset and filled with anger, instead of the dog portion of things. Not that it was possible to tell that without seeing more of that kind of person close up. A thing that Liam was about to do, the next day.

  He took notes, working out what that sort of being might want to know. For instance, they’d want to be aware of how Noah would be punished in court. If it was really going to happen at all. A thing that was uncertain, Liam had to guess. After all, he was a human and the court was made up of such beings as well.

  Werewolves didn’t have a voice in such a place. Just like he didn’t.

  It was also possible that something else was going on, other than things being linked t
o Vern and his daughter’s situation. That the meeting was being brought about to launch an attack, by someone else. Possibly not even the werewolves. That was less likely, of course. Unless the target wasn’t just himself or Brenner.

  Yes, they were going to be there. From what it sounded like, many of the other communities were sending representation. Seeking to have a voice in the room, so that their peoples wouldn’t be left out of any important decisions that might take place. The feeling of that, an attack coming, was strong enough that Liam had to sit back, at four in the morning, and simply look at the computer in front of him. The screen showed a web-site that held a lot of information. All of it suddenly skipping off of his mind.

  Leaving only visions of bright explosions, screaming and noise. He could hear the voices as the world fell away from him. What they were saying was hard to make out, for some reason. Brenner screamed as a door broke inward. It was similar to what had happened a few days before to him, so parts of it were understandable. In the room, a large and unfamiliar space, there were dozens of faces. He saw a flash of red hair and pale skin, which blurred as it moved.

  Next to that was a clearer face. That of a man. Mitchel.

  The rest of the scene was like that. Too loud to make out what was being screamed as armed men, ones in black, ran into the room. They weren’t dressed like the bad men, though the look was similar. They had body armor on. That or very thick clothing. They also had deadly looking rifles with them, also in black. Those were the same as what Simpson and his friends, the bad men, had threatened to kill him and Mary with.

  The words, that one threat, was repeated by the men in his vision or imagining. He wasn’t certain which it was, having never encountered anything like it, even in his reading or studies. No one had ever told him that things so immersive and yet confusing would happen to him, either. That meant, for a long time, he simply sat there, as if in that other room, watching it all happen. Only once, though it seemed to go on at different speeds. At times the whole thing blurred, becoming a wall of noise and colors that made almost no sense at all.

  At other times the whole thing stilled to a point of extreme clarity. Like a picture from the computer in high definition. Each time that took place, Liam was treated to seeing a different person being shot or in one case, exploding. It wasn’t all unarmed people doing the dying. The masked men in black did as well, eventually. The last three tried to run away.

  Rather, they did it, getting out of the room without being too injured.

  Then the vision ended. If that was what the thing had been. The quality of it reminded him of the popular movie that he’d watched not long before.

  “Which could mean that you are recalling that and adding new elements.” The whisper shocked him for a moment, leaving him feeling scared. A tingle inside him that he’d only really ever noticed once before tried to take root deep inside of his middle.

  He didn’t know if he was fooling himself or not, of course. New things could be anything, as far as he knew. Again, no one had mentioned him as likely having powers of that sort. Strength, healing and being nearly impossible to kill had come up. Being immune to cold as well. Oaks had given him the idea that he might be extra intelligent, though that could have been simple praise, meant to leave him feeling secure in an uncertain situation.

  That psychic abilities existed had been brought up, if obliquely. In the books he’d read and with his interactions with various people, Rob Mobley the Elf and the vampires that had come to visit for instance, magic had been proven to be real. Not one person had suggested at any point that it was a trait he shared or a skill he could learn or should.

  Still, he had some time and even if it was something else, such as a warning that he not watch violent shows with Brenner any longer, writing down what he’d seen was a solid plan. That way others could read about his imaginings or whatever was going on, without him having to speak for several minutes.

  Whispering softly for long periods of times felt grating to him. No one had ever said anything, except asking him to repeat himself, of course. Liam had to move closer to people in order to be understood, than a normal human needed to do. It marked him as strange and probably invasive.

  So he wrote. Carefully crafting his words, using a black ballpoint pen and a yellow pad of paper to try and illustrate what it was he’d seen. He lacked true skill in art, but attempted to draw the people that he’d seen as well. That took finding a pencil, since working in pen wouldn’t allow him to erase the unneeded lines or to use it for shading in relief.

  In the end, the images, four of them, seemed to give an indication of what he’d seen, without truly looking like a photograph at all. They were too general and lacking in the needed detail. It also took him hours to get everything on the yellow paper. Mainly because he didn’t write that fast, since it was a skill that he hadn’t worked with much as of yet. That meant, at seven in the morning, he had a poor representation of what he’d seen a few hours before.

  Liam jumped a bit when Tiffany, dressed in tan slacks, with a nice but lightweight button up top and funny looking shoes, ran down the stairs.

  Instead of saying hello, she simply called out, moving into the kitchen first thing.

  “Coffee. I must have coffee.” The words weren’t truly mumbled, seeming fairly well awake and alert already. After three minutes of clanking and water running, the woman popped her head back out of the other room.

  “How was your night?” She seemed to mean what she was asking, instead of it being her finally acknowledging his presence.

  Not that she had any reason to think that he’d done anything except read and sit at his table. There were books on it, in a different place than they had been when she’d gone to bed. The computer had shifted to the side, since he’d needed the space to write and draw. Notes had been mentioned, so seeing a yellow legal pad with writing on it wasn’t going to seem out of place.

  There were drawings, though those weren’t visible at all. If Brenner could make out what they were supposed to be, what with his poor skills that way. It had been worth a try, so he’d done it.

  Liam swallowed and then tapped the paper, since that was the sort of thing you did when you wanted to bring attention to something written. At least Brenner had done that the day before.

  “Troubling. I had a vision. That or some kind of dream or imagining. I didn’t understand it, really. An attack. I wrote it down and tried to draw some pictures. I didn’t have any crayons, so used pencil for that.” He smiled, knowing that little children were supposed to do their art in colored wax. He had some of those, a nice and very complete kit of the things. Sitting in his home, so far away.

  Tiffany let an eyebrow go up, the red line of hair twitching a bit. There were dark circles under her eyes. Green and yellow predominated the smudges there. Her eyes looked green that morning, in a way that they simply hadn’t before. Brighter and almost stinging in their clarity. Her hair was put up, though looked brushed and cared for. It was obvious that she’d showered already. Liam having missed the sounds of it happening totally, absorbed in his work as he had been.

  Instead of telling him that it was nothing, which was probably the simple truth, the woman moved to the table, and started to scan the pages. Reading more quickly than Liam would have thought she was capable of. Still, she didn't actually say anything until she got to the second page that held a drawing on it. The first one was clearly Mitchel Warner. A least Liam thought it looked much like him. That was the face he’d been trying to replicate.

  It was her turn to tap the page with a finger. She carefully did it on an empty portion of the page, to protect his work, as feeble as it was.

  “This is Narran. The Queen of the Vampires. Let me…” She stopped on the very next picture, then turned to the last one. There she nodded again. “Okay… This last one is Gerald Case. Basically, the shadow rep. Um… I need to make some calls. To see who all is planning to be at the meeting later today. I can’t see either of these people sh
owing up there.”

  That the pictures looked recognizably like people was pretty good, Liam thought. To be identified as specific people meant that he wasn’t doing too badly, art wise. They might even be good enough to place upon the refrigerator with a magnet. Mary did that with his best efforts at home. He didn't know if Brenner would enjoy that kind of thing.

  Also, he really needed to practice that particular skill more, before suggesting things such as that. Clean white paper and better drawing materials would be useful as well, for presentations sake.

  He thought about that as Tiff found her cell phone and moved to the other room to do her calling. That meant she was out of the space when a knock came at the door. She didn’t come to answer it, so on the second round of thumping, he slowly opened the thing. The man on the other side was Sanchez, the man from the other day.

  His voice was chipper enough, when he saw who was there.

  “Liam! I picked up some donuts for the trip. Is Tiffany awake yet or are we going to have to drag her into the shower?”

  Not being totally certain the man was allowed into the house without permission, Liam let it happen anyway. There was no box in his hands, but a soft scent of sugar and maple clung to him. As the man entered, Liam whispered to him.

  “She’s in the other room. Awake already, making calls. I had… I don’t know. A vision? A dream while awake?” He shrugged, the thin scrub top, in green since he hadn’t changed in a few days, shifting on his shoulders.

  Agent Sanchez just looked at him, his face serious after a moment.

  “Is that normal? I read the files on people like you and that kind of thing wasn’t mentioned at all. In any way, as either a psychic ability or some kind reverie state that you’d be prone to. Then, there’s a lot we don’t know, so…” The man didn’t shrug or make any other obvious signal that he didn't know or understand what was going on.

  Instead there was a simply a very close look at Liam. A locking of eyes that seemed to be saying something to him on a deep level. What that was didn’t come across very well, however. At least Liam wasn’t getting it, if it meant anything other than the man letting him know that the drawings and words he’d written down were unexpected.