The Immortal Warriors Boxed Set: Books 1-11

by H. T. Night

  “I know. I was calm. I remember feeling safe, like I was home.”

  “That is because of our bond.” I paused and looked at Tommy. “I have a question for you.”

  “Okay.”

  “You remembered everything from last night, right?”

  Tommy was hesitant, “Yeah, I think so.”

  “You’re aware that you were licking me like I was a creamsicle.”

  Tommy laughed. “Yeah, about that,” Tommy stammered a bit, “all I can tell you is that it’s instinctive. I can’t high-five you or even give you a bro hug. When I’m in that state, licking seems perfectly OK. Don’t judge me.”

  “As long as you only do the licking as a werewolf, we’re cool.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, pretty boy.” Tommy knew that calling me pretty boy pissed me off. “Are we done talking about that?” Tommy said, a little embarrassed.

  “Yeah, we’re done, sloppy kisser,” I said with a chuckle.

  Tommy shot me a look that pretty much said, ‘quit it, dude.’

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “Now I’m done.”

  “Josiah, there is one more full moon left. Do you think we can accomplish what we need to in one more night?”

  “I hope so.”

  Tommy nodded and went upstairs to take a nap.

  I decided to watch a Scorsese marathon on the tube. Raging Bull followed by The Departed. Damn, he was an intense director. I loved me some Marty.

  Tommy came downstairs as The Departed ended. I looked up at Tommy and said, “How Mark Walberg didn’t win the Oscar for that movie, I don’t know.”

  Tommy ignored my sentiments for Marky Mark. He clearly had other things on his mind. “Yari called me,” he said. “She said they will come back tomorrow.”

  “She called you? Are you guys like best friends now?”

  “Relax, Josiah; you can’t put a claim on every woman in this house.”

  I laughed. “I’m not jealous, Tom.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “I don’t know what I am,” I said.

  “Look, I know you two slept together. I know she followed you for two years, but it’s obvious that you have feelings for Lena.”

  “Huh?” I said, acting surprised.

  “Jo, you have serious feelings for Lena. Anyone can see that.”

  “I’ve never ever said anything to lead you to that conclusion.”

  “Josiah, I’ve known you for a long time. You have the same look in your eye you had for Krista Gregory. And you had it bad for Krista Gregory.”

  He was right, I was crazy about Lena. I cared for her in a way I didn’t completely understand. Every time I think about her, I became exhausted with the longing in my heart. “Yeah, I guess so, Tom,” I said.

  “You guess so?” Tommy answered back.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “You don’t have to say anything. I get it.”

  “My sister?”

  Tommy nodded his head and stared off. I knew he loved my sister deeply. “After I lost to Atticai and Goliath had beaten me further and left me for dead, I was lying there in a pool of my own blood. I had an inner peace inside me. I figured I was done and I was about to go to the ever after. Then something extraordinary happened. I saw your sister. She was reaching out to me. I was dying and knew the end was near. I knew I was moments away from being with her.” Tommy stopped talking.

  I waited patiently, giving him time to gather himself.

  He tried to speak again but he was too choked up to do so. This was hard for him. Hell, it was hard for me to hear. “I could see her face, Josiah. I could see your sister’s face. She was reaching out her hand to me. She was there to take me with her. It was the most wonderful feeling I ever felt. I reached out my hand and she took it.”

  “She took your hand?”

  “I thought it was hers, but it wasn’t. It was Yari’s. Yari took my hand and wiped the blood from my eyes. I reached out for your sister, but Yari was the one there. Jo, Yari saved my life. I was left for dead. She risked everything to help me out of there.” Tommy stopped talking. “It was like your sister acted through her. Her touch was Yari’s touch.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “I still can’t believe that seven-foot beanpole kicked my ass.”

  “Atticai did look like a beanpole, but that was where it ended. He was the strongest man I have ever fought.”

  “Stronger than Krull?”

  I thought about it. “Yeah, definitely. Krull seemed more seasoned. Atticai had the heart of a lion.”

  “All I know is that heart of a lion, scarecrow-looking, motherfucker kicked the shit out of me,” Tommy said, disgusted. He stared at me and didn’t say anything.

  “What?” I asked.

  “How were you able to kill him?”

  “I was able to kill him only because I had become the eagle. Man versus vampire, he would have manhandled me. I don’t know if I could take him even now.”

  Tommy’s expression was one of disgrace and confusion. He stood up from the table. “Anyway, so what’s the plan for tonight?”

  “There is less of a plan for tonight and more of a plan for today.”

  “Okay?”

  “I just think we should just hang out today.”

  “Just hang out?” Tommy repeated slowly.

  “I’m thinking we just hang out together and forget about the sun going down. We just spend quality time together. I want to see if the bond we have right now can easily translate as you become a werewolf. I think if there is no change in your reaction, we will be on to something.”

  “You sure, Josiah? What if things don’t go as smoothly as they did last night? What if I don’t respond to you? Then it’s ‘Josiah vs. Werewolf, Part 1.’”

  “I am going with my gut again on this one. This is going to work.”

  Tommy was definitely unsure about my decision but he went along with it anyway. “All right. What do you want to do?”

  “I thought we could either do some old school MMA training, or I could kick your ass in Scrabble.”

  “You didn’t just lay down the gauntlet?” Tommy grinned from ear to ear. Tommy and I have had some epic Scrabble matches in the past.

  “You have a board?” I asked.

  “What do you think? It was the first thing I bought when I got the place.”

  “Okay, Tommy boy. It’s time to triple letter your ass.”

  “Triple letter? Son, I’m going to triple word your face into submission.”

  Tommy and I loved to play our Scrabble. Tommy went to pull out the board. It was 6:00 p.m. There were two hours until sunset.

  Tommy lay out the board on the living room floor and we took our pieces to begin the match. I went first. I earned double points; I spelled “rhythm.” There was no way Tommy could make a good word out of that. Tommy took his time and then a familiar gleam lit up his eyes. Oh no, he was going to earn major points, I could feel it. Tommy used my ‘y’ in ‘rhythm’ and made the word ‘oxygen’ going down and played the ‘x’ on the triple letter.

  “Look, who just got his ass triple lettered,” Tommy said, as cocky as a man could be playing a game of Scrabble. “That’s 32 points, son. Shabam!”

  The challenge was on! Tommy and I were going to have another epic match. We played a long time and it came down to the wire once again with the score being 312 to 317 with Tommy ahead. I had a letter ‘Q’ left and was down by five. There was an ‘A’ and a ‘T’ in the far-right corner of the board. ‘QAT’ was a Scrabble word. I had no idea what the word meant, but I recalled seeing the word in the Scrabble dictionary. I was staring at the ‘Q’ with deep thought and had my head down. I closed my eyes and thought about it for a moment. Should I put it down? If I was wrong, I know Tommy would challenge it. I opened my eyes and said, “Okay, Tom, you’ll probably challenge this, but I got to do it.” I was expecting Tommy to say, ‘challenge.’ But, there was a problem. Tommy wasn’t in the room. I stood up and looked for
him in the cage room, and sure enough, there he was. He had turned into a werewolf and I didn’t even know. I was too busy pondering the ‘Q’.

  Tommy once again stared out the window crying mournfully to the moon. It was less of a cry this night and more of a plea. What was making him so sad?

  I hadn’t interacted with Tommy during his howling out phase, but this time I needed to. I needed to bond with him immediately. I slowly and tentatively walked over to the giant, gray wolf. His beautiful mane encircled his huge head. I knelt down next to him and Tommy turned his head toward me and rested it on my shoulder. Whatever he was feeling inside, somehow my presence was comforting him.

  Tommy walked on all fours out of the room. He continued upstairs and I followed him. He went up to his room and was looking under the bed. I walked over to him, and his nose was nuzzled under the bed. I looked under the bed to see what he was looking for and saw an envelope with pictures. I reached under the bed and picked up the envelope and sat on his bed. I opened the envelope to look at the pictures: it was pictures of us, pictures of my parents, pictures of Tommy and my sister.

  Tommy jumped on the bed and sat next to me. I slowly went through each picture with him, tears burning my eyes. I hadn’t taken time to reflect on my family in a long time. My family was Tommy’s family, and their death affected him the same way it did me. He loved my parents and they loved him. He and my sister’s love was one for the ages. I wondered why it took him to become a werewolf to properly mourn. He and I had never talked about the day they all died in the car crash. We just went on with our lives and used mixed martial arts as a way to escape.

  I put the pictures down and lay back on the bed and Tommy yawned and put his head on the bed. I decided to talk to him, not like a wolf, but as a man. “I miss them, Tommy,” I said, “I miss them a lot.”

  Tommy looked up at me.

  I continued, “That day is a blur to me. When you called and told me they were in the hospital—I went into shock. I convinced myself they were dead even before I got to the hospital. That was the only way I could deal with it. It’s morbid, but it’s what I had to do. I don’t know how you dealt with it, Tom. You were in the room when my sister died.”

  Tommy moaned. He laid his head on my chest. I quit talking. We both lay there in silence. This was the first time Tommy and I mourned together for my family.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After a while, Tommy fell asleep on the bed.

  I got up quietly, left the room and walked downstairs. I decided to go outside; it had been three days since I had some fresh air. After a while, I decided to go for a light run in the midnight air. I jogged uphill on a winding road. Running uphill always made me feel alive. The air is a lot thinner up in the mountains, so I didn’t push it. I wanted to feel the night.

  I ended up at the all night 7-Eleven store, two miles up. I decided to go in and grab some hot dogs for Tommy and me. I went to the back where they kept basic items in the freezer. I grabbed a pack of dogs and a pack of buns from the shelf. I went to the condiment aisle and grabbed some Gulden’s mustard. Neither Tommy nor I liked ketchup.

  I walked up to the front counter to pay and scanned the magazines while I waited for the guy in front to me to pick out some lottery tickets. I looked at the tabloid magazines and newspapers. One cover read, “Real Vampires Wreak Havoc on Dracula’s Castle.” I laughed. Real vampires, my ass! I’d show you a fucking real-life vampire! There was a picture of Dracula’s Castle on the cover of the magazine. As I stared at the cover, I dropped the hot dogs, buns and mustard.

  There it was: a white castle with exactly the same building structure as the one in my vision, complete with hill and distinct-colored brush. Holy shit! It was the castle to a “T.” Was I supposed to go to Dracula’s castle? Was that little blue man supposed to train me at Dracula’s castle? Where the hell was Dracula’s castle located? I skimmed the article. Transylvania, Romania. Are you fucking kidding me? Could this be any weirder?

  Chapter Nineteen

  When I got back and put the hot dogs and buns in the refrigerator and went upstairs to check on Tommy. When I looked in his room, something was horribly wrong; he wasn’t there. My heart fell to the floor. Tommy was out of his cage! I totally forgot that he was still a werewolf. A werewolf that was capable of killing anything or anyone in a blink of an eye.

  What was I thinking? How could I be so careless? I had left Tommy out of his cage and whatever happened would be my fault. I went through the cabin looking for him. I yelled out his name. Nothing. I went outside and looked in every direction. Nothing. I decided to head up toward the woods, I don’t know why that made the most sense, but it did.

  I yelled out his name as I hurried deeper into the woods. I heard rustling in the bushes ahead of me and then I heard a familiar growl.

  “Tommy!” I yelled. “Stop whatever you’re doing! STOP!” I was praying there wasn’t something awful behind that bush. I ran around the bush to see the potential massacre. There he was, Tommy—by himself. His back leg lifted up and pointed at the bush. He had obviously been relieving himself. He looked at me as if to say, ‘Really dude?’

  “Let’s go back in the house, Tommy,” I said in a command. As we walked back, I said to him repeatedly, “I didn’t know, bro.”

  When we arrived back at the house, it was 4:30 a.m. The sun was going to be up in two hours and I would have to wait a whole month for another full moon. So, Tommy and I needed to get to work. If my vision was right—or if I interpreted it correctly, Tommy should be able to transition the way Mani could.

  Right now, there was an immense amount of trust between us. He went outside and didn’t have the need to kill. As far as I could tell—he didn’t even harm a small animal, not even an insect. I truly believed in my heart of hearts that he had been tamed to a certain extent.

  I looked at Tommy. How was I going to take this up to the next level? How was I going to get Tommy to a place where he can transition the way a Mani can? Everything up to this point had just come to me. Almost as if the Triat was speaking through me. Now, I felt like I was dangling. I hadn’t a clue.

  I sat on the couch and just closed my eyes. Tommy jumped on the couch and lay next to me with his giant werewolf body. The only thing that made any sense to me was to talk to him as Tommy my friend—not Tommy the werewolf.

  “So, what now?” I asked him. Tommy looked up at me and seemed desperate for me to have some answers as if to say, ‘You don’t know? We have accomplished all of this, and now you’re stumped?’

  “I know, Tommy. I am stumped,” I said.

  I looked at this werewolf. He was quite the creature. If I didn’t know it was Tommy, I’d be scared to death. This killing machine looked ready to tear anything from limb to limb. Are we supposed to go out and fight? Or are we supposed to bond in another way? I had no idea. Well, that question would be answered soon enough.

  Tommy’s ears pricked up and he ran to the door. Suddenly, I heard howls, but they were not coming from Tommy. I ran to the windows and saw something awful outside. As the full moonlight landed on the earth I saw what it was. It was five werewolves as big or bigger than Tommy creeping up to the cabin and I could see a sixth one in the distance. One of the werewolves was almost twice as big as the others. These must be the Carni from the other night. And the gigantic black one must be Goliath. He was already scary-as-hell-looking as a Carni, but as a werewolf, he looked like something out of the book of Revelations.

  I looked at Tommy. “What should we do?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Tommy said back.

  At first, I didn’t realize what had just happened. Then it became crystal clear to me. “Did I just hear your voice, or did I imagine that?”

  “You didn’t imagine anything, Josiah,” Tommy said to me. He was staring at me. His mouth wasn’t moving. I could hear his thoughts.

  “We can read each other’s minds?” I asked Tommy in my head.

  “This is fucking huge,” I whispered
out loud. “But we really need to talk about this later.”

  “Josiah, talk to me in your head. They will hear you. Werewolves have keen hearing.”

  “How do they know we’re here?” I thought to Tommy.

  “This place wasn’t exactly a secret,” Tommy replied, looking at me. “I did just kinda mark my territory right outside.”

  “We have two choices. We can run, or we can fight.”

  “I choose fight,” Tommy said. He wanted payback. Who could blame him?

  “We are horribly outnumbered,” I said, still in my head. “If we choose to fight, we’ll need to isolate them.”

  “We cannot allow them to attack us as a pack,” Tommy agreed. We were on the same page. This wasn’t going to be a Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid scene, going out in a blaze of glory. We needed to be smart about this.

  “We need to split up,” I said. I figured Tommy and I could use our thoughts as walkie-talkies.

  I peeked out the window. The werewolves were making their move on the house. “I’m going to transition to the eagle and fly out back. You go upstairs and climb out the window and onto the roof.”

  “Josiah, whatever happens, please don’t leave me here.”

  “Tommy, there would be no way I would ever abandon you. I’ll die here tonight if I have to.”

  Tommy nodded and headed quickly upstairs.

  I ran out the back and transitioned into the eagle as I hit the back porch. I flew up by gliding my wings just high enough that the wolves couldn’t see me. I circled and looked down. I saw Tommy climb out his bedroom window and leap in one quick motion to the roof by bouncing from the tree at the side of the house to the roof—like a ninja.

  “This is a good plan,” I thought.

  “I doubt all of them will come here at once,” Tommy thought back.

  “Good, we can still hear each other. I see a wolf by himself about three houses down. He must have pulled back to be some kind of lookout. I’m going to go down to him.”

  “Be careful,” Tommy said in his head. “I’m going to see how I measure up to one of the assholes at full werewolf.”