The Immortal Warriors Boxed Set: Books 1-11

by H. T. Night

  I looked up in the sky and I knew I was going to have to visit up north and visit my friends. The moon would be at full glow in about five days.

  We eventually made our way to the 91 freeway. We passed the 57 and then passed Imperial Highway. It was dusk, but I could see pretty well. Maybe too well.

  I would remember that these next moments would be the hardest ordeal that I had ever witnessed in my entire life.

  There had been so many times I wished I would have reacted differently. Daniel was driving in the far-left lane and I was one lane over, diagonal to their blue minivan. I was following behind them, but not too close, as Maya had instructed.

  To my left, I could see some long-haired asshole driving a gray, beat-up truck in a reckless manner. He was zigzagging, trying to get around cars so he could move faster, maybe shave two minutes off his commute. He never once used his blinkers. I could tell the gray truck was trying to get in the right lane, so he could either exit or get around Daniel’s blue minivan. I tried to give the gray truck as much room as I could.

  This was the moment that I wished to God that I would have fallen on the sword. It all happened so fast—in a fraction of a second—that I couldn’t react in time. If I could have, I would have sped up and taken the brunt of the truck’s impact, instead of moving out of the way to let him cross my lane. But that didn’t happen. Something else happened.

  The gray truck swerved to the right, losing control going through lanes. At one point, the truck was right in front of me. I wish to God I would have done something at that moment. Other than crashing behind him, there was nothing I could do.

  The truck was even more out of control. It swerved and as if Daniel’s blue minivan was a magnet, the truck smashed into it with a ferocious crash. Daniel lost control of the minivan—a minivan that had my fiancée and her parents inside of it.

  The gray truck knocked the blue minivan with a terrible force of ripping metal and fiberglass flying all over that was so traumatic that I would see and hear the impact of the accident in my sleep for many years to come.

  After the initial impact, the minivan crashed through the white guardrail and fell into a ditch that was to the right of the freeway. The minivan rolled at least five times before landing straight up. The fact that it landed on its four wheels was the one thing that gave me hope.

  The gray truck, however, was able to bob and weave and he took off, away from the scene. I had no time to get a license plate number. I had to stop and render aid to my love and her parents. I slowed and stopped my Mustang to the right of the freeway about 100 feet from where they had fallen into the ditch.

  Everyone was honking and trying to get around the accident. I was the only one who stopped.

  I had never felt more horror in my entire life. I ran down the ditch and maneuvered my way through the muddy water and crap that was in the ditch. Finally, I reached the minivan. I stood in front of the vehicle. The front windshield was cracked and broken, the glass a mass of bloodied, spider-webbed breaks.

  Inside, all three of them—Daniel, Margaret, and my dear Maya—sat askew in the seat belts, bloody and unconscious. It was a scene I never imagined would be possible outside of an action movie. It was like something out of the worst of my nightmares—I should have paid more attention to them.

  Chapter Fifteen

  6:46 p.m. My heart nearly stopped as I looked inside the vehicle. This was my life inside this horrifically smashed-up van. I had no idea how to handle the next series of events. All I knew was, I needed to get to them fast and see how badly they were injured and get them medical help. I was going to do whatever it took to get inside.

  I took out my phone and called 911 and nothing happened. My phone was dead. It was insane. How was my cell phone dead? I had charged it that morning! I shoved it back in my pocket.

  “Are you guys okay?” I screamed. I heard nothing coming from the van and no one acknowledged my voice. Not a grunt, nor a whimper. Nothing but dead silence, except for the traffic whooshing by. I hoped to God that a police officer would drive past and call an ambulance.

  Every inch of the car was so smashed I couldn’t figure out how I was going to get inside. All doors were crushed in so badly that there was no way for me to humanly open them. Not even with my extra werewolf strength could I open any door.

  The only way I could get through was to go through the broken glass of the front window. I didn’t give a shit. I slid my arm, shoulder, body through the front window, slicing up my arms getting through it, but by no means stopping. I tried not to knock any glass on Daniel, who was the only one in the front seat.

  Daniel was knocked out cold with his face resting on the steering wheel. He was a bloody mess. He wasn’t moving at all. I felt his carotid artery. There was such a weak and erratic pulse that I was frightened that he might not make it.

  Maya and her mom were in the back seat and the seats were broken and twisted. Tears began to pour out from my eyes. I pleaded out loud, “Please, God! No!”

  I inched and crawled my way through the broken glass and slipped on the piles of bridal magazines as I inched closer to Maya and her mother.

  They both seemed unconscious. I touched Maya’s cheek and begged for her to say something to me. To open her eyes… anything. I screamed so loud that it sounded like a howl.

  I tried opening the back door, but I couldn’t. I was afraid to move any of them, in case they had spinal injuries. I had no idea what was broken on any of their bodies.

  Then Maya’s eyes barely opened.

  “Maya! I’m here! It’s Tommy.”

  “Sweetheart. I… I… I’m in so much pain.” Her clothes were soaked in her own blood and it was spreading.

  “Hang on, baby,” I cried out. “Hang on!” I reached for my telephone again to call 911.

  “Tommy…” Maya barely spoke out.

  “What is it, sweetie?”

  “Tommy, I love you.”

  “I love you, too, sweetie. Please hang on. Don’t you leave me!”

  Now, insanely, I had a cell signal inside the wrecked minivan. The 911 operator answered and I told her there was an accident near Gypsum Canyon, close in the ditch near the off-ramp. I told her everybody was hurt horrifically bad and that the driver didn’t seem to have a strong pulse. I asked her to send every type of paramedics out here. I even added, “You will need to bring the Jaws of Life because the doors are wedged shut. I had to crawl through the broken windshield.”

  “Stay on the line, sir.”

  “I can’t. I have to render first aid and I can’t talk to you when people are bleeding to death. Just come!”

  I hung up and Maya’s eyes were barely open. “My head hurts so bad,” she said.

  “I know, baby. You’re hurt bad. Maya, I love you so much. Please don’t leave me! Hold on! Help is coming.” I kissed her bloody forehead and face and ripped off my shirt to staunch the bleeding as best I could.

  Then Maya closed her eyes and became unresponsive.

  “No!” I shouted. I was in a panic state. “Someone help us!” I screamed as loudly as I could at the passing cars. All three of them were beat up beyond words, their heads and faces smashed, arms and legs bent unnaturally.

  Maya looked like she had taken most of the brunt of the five rollovers because the seat was broken and somehow, the seat belt had held but it looked like it might have broken her neck because it was at an odd angle and twisted around her neck.

  “Does your neck hurt?”

  She did not reply. I took out my pocketknife and cut away the seat belt. She sagged into me and I gently laid her down and held my T-shirt on her bleeding head with one hand. With the other, I tried to wake up Margaret.

  “Margaret!” I said, and touched her shoulder. I couldn’t find a pulse in her neck. She didn’t seem to be breathing, though Maya was hanging in there with very shallow breaths.

  Margaret wasn’t giving me any response. I sat in the back seat, holding Maya’s hand and her mom’s hand and praying
out loud. I didn’t know what to do. I felt helpless.

  Suddenly, I was thunderstruck. Why in the hell did I not make Maya immortal when I had the chance, and she was interested in the idea?

  I called 911 again and pleaded for them to get to us. Immediately. I took turns holding each of their hands and praying that they were still alive. By this point, I was covered in blood from all three of them. I didn’t care about the bloodstains. I just wanted them to live.

  “Daniel, can you hear me?” I asked.

  I held Maya in my arms and just rocked her, kissing her on her forehead and head and trying to decide if turning her would have even helped. I knew that if I had, she would be horribly wounded in her wolf form, just like she was in her human form. But she would be immortal. I mentally kicked myself.

  The blood flow stopped from Maya’s head. I did nothing but pray and hold the women’s hands until help came.

  After sawing through the door with the Jaws of Life, the paramedics and firefighters got to us inside the van and very carefully moved all three bodies, not letting on if any of them were still alive.

  I crawled out of the bloody car and was able to walk on my own accord. I explained to them that I only had cuts and scrapes from trying to get to them.

  “We should treat you, too,” the paramedic said. “You are cut up.”

  “Don’t waste your time on me. Save them.”

  A police officer pulled up and approached me.

  “Did you see how this happened?”

  “Yes, sir.” I made a couple of statements about the gray truck to the police. The paramedics prepared to take all three victims to Anaheim Memorial Hospital. In separate ambulances.

  Each of them had their own ambulance? I was absolutely sick to my stomach when two more of them pulled up and began to load Maya’s parents on gurneys. I wretched at the side of the road and then pulled the keys out of my Mustang and locked it up.

  There were no words to explain what I was feeling. My life, my love, my lover, was being ripped from me with every heartbeat. Maya, my heart, was slipping away. Daniel and Margaret, too.

  As the ambulance was about to pull away, I asked if I could go in the one that had Maya in it.

  “You know her?”

  “She’s my fiancée.” I was shirtless, so I understood why he questioned me.

  “We had no idea.”

  “I know. I was following them to a restaurant.”

  “Were you involved in the accident, too?”

  “No, I was just a witness.”

  The paramedic nodded. “Hop in, hold on, and stay out of our way.”

  “Thanks.” They were doing so many things to her to try to resuscitate her as the ambulance moved quickly through the parting traffic, the siren blasting its cry. I just held her hand.

  Suddenly, they were using some sort of paddles and said, “Clear!” I moved my hand and body away while they shocked Maya.

  “We’ve got a pulse,” the EMT said. “It’s weak, but she’s hanging on now!”

  Dear God, what has happened? This was a fucking nightmare!

  We arrived at the hospital rather quickly and all three of the Reigns were rushed to the emergency room.

  I waited in the emergency room lobby, still shirtless, while my fiancée and her parents fought for their lives.

  Then I remembered. Someone else needed to be here. He was barely eighteen. How the hell was I going to break this news to him? I had to call him. He needed to come. There were things that he had to take care of, that I could not. Because I was not family.

  I called Josiah.

  Josiah answered on the first ring, as he usually did. “Hey. How did it go at the flower shop thing?”

  “Fine. Hey, Jo?” I said. My voice cracked. I tried my hardest not to cry.

  “I had an amazing workout today.” Josiah wanted to tell me about his day and I was about to tell him the worst news of his life. “It was my best weight training ever, and—”

  Holy shit! How was I going to do this?

  “Josiah! Wait!” I said. “I have something very important to tell you.”

  Josiah realized something was up with the urgency in my voice. I could actually hear him take a seat. “What is it, Tommy? What’s happened?”

  I tried to spit out the words. “Your parents, your sister. It’s bad.”

  “What do you mean? Explain!” I could hear the fear and panic in his voice.

  “They have been in a bad car accident, a real bad accident,” I said as the words just tumbled out of my mouth without any preamble.

  “Are they going to be okay?” Josiah asked, his voice pleading.

  This is where I lied to give the boy more hope than I had.

  I said, “Maybe, Josiah! Meet me at Anaheim Hills Memorial. Get here quick, but don’t run any red lights or do anything crazy.”

  His voice wavered. “I won’t.”

  “I’m in the lobby of the ER. I’m here for you, bro.”

  “Where are they?”

  “With the doctors and nurses.”

  7:40 p.m. I hung up the phone and I knew Josiah was at least 30 minutes away. I was covered in blood. I insisted to the doctors that I was okay. Aside from the scrapes and cuts that I received going through the windshield, most of the blood on my body was everybody else’s. I had to put my bloody shirt back on as I had nothing else with me.

  The hospital insisted that I get examined and I did have health insurance through MMA, so I guessed I would get my cuts checked out. I did worry that they would find out that I was not completely human.

  They did want me to get a tetanus shot because I was all cut up, and the nurse talked me into it. The lady at registration took my info and before I knew it, I had a plastic hospital bracelet riveted around my wrist and I was asked to remove all of my clothing.

  I wondered if they were trying to keep me busy while they worked on Maya…

  They had me go to the back and ‘strip down’ and a young lady doctor checked me out. I couldn’t think straight. From where I was sitting from my hospital bed, I could see doctors working on each of them. It was a perfect view through the gaps in the privacy curtains. They were trying like hell to get everyone stabilized.

  I had a glimmer of hope with the urgency everybody seemed to have and the skill with which they ordered and administered drugs and procedures. I said a prayer. It was more of a plea.

  Gradually, the doctors and nurses stopped working on Daniel. They all had disappointment on their sad faces. Some even had tears in their eyes.

  7:55 p.m. “Call it,” someone said, and I didn’t understand what they meant, until I heard someone reply, “Time of death. 7:55 p.m.”

  Daniel Reign was pronounced dead. I felt like howling but restrained myself.

  I never wanted to hear those words again: Call it.

  Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be long before I heard it said again.

  7:58 p.m. Then the exact same thing happened to Maya’s mom. They were working at a high urgency, and then in unison, all the doctors and nurses stopped and shook their heads.

  My heart sank.

  8:01 p.m. “Call it,” one of the nurses said.

  “Time of death. 8:01 p.m.”

  Margaret Reign was pronounced dead.

  8:09 p.m. I could see doctors and nurses still working on Maya. She had IVs in her arms and an oxygen mask over her face. All kinds of alarms were beeping in her cubicle.

  But I had faith. Faith that true love could and would save her. I tried to love her hard from the other side of the curtain, as hard as I could, as if love was the most powerful element of the universe. I had hope, lots of hope.

  I even tried to visualize Maya at the altar in her wedding dress and me in a tux, with Josiah next to us, and her mom and her dad. But the visualization wouldn’t come. It was then that I knew that hope and love couldn’t stop the inevitable from happening. Mortals are fragile creatures.

  Someone came in and gave me a tetanus shot, cleaned off my face, h
ands and arms with antiseptic, and put butterfly bandages on the worst of my cuts.

  “Good news,” the doctor said.

  I perked up, thinking that he meant he had good news about Maya. “Really?”

  “Yes. You don’t need any stitches.”

  “Right.”

  He stripped off his blue Nitrile gloves, tossed them in a red container marked “hazardous waste” and left the cubicle.

  I jumped off my gurney and went over to where they were working on Maya. A male nurse told me to go sit down in my own ER cubicle. I told him that this was my fiancée. He left me alone then and I tried to stay out of their way.

  They worked and worked on her. Then, just like they had done with Maya’s parents, the doctors and nurses stopped trying. They all looked at one another in a manner that seemed helpless. No one felt more helpless than me as I watched them exchange defeated expressions.

  There was nothing I could do. Nothing. It didn’t matter if I was a werewolf or a mixed martial arts fighter. I couldn’t save them. I couldn’t even save the love of my life.

  8:22 p.m. “Call it,” one of them said. And my heart caught in my throat because I now knew what that meant.

  “Time of death. 8:22 p.m.”

  Maya Reign was pronounced dead.

  I fell to my knees and cried out in the middle of the emergency room. What the hell had just happened?

  Only a few hours ago, we had been ordering wedding flowers at a damn floral shop. How the hell was I here in an emergency room, witnessing such harsh things as the deaths of three people that I loved?

  I pushed and shoved my way over to Maya’s body and collapsed on her, crying out.

  “Sir, you can’t do that. We have procedures. Believe me, we are very sorry for your loss, but you can’t lie across her. We have to disconnect things, clean up, and keep accurate records.”

  I nodded numbly, but was slow to move off of her.

  “Come on, sir.” A couple of nurses came to my aid and walked me back to my gurney.