by Lisa Ladew
Riot could have been Bryce’s age of 25, or a few years older. He looked hard, useful, but unpredictable. Ryder looked the same. Cats always threw Jameson for a loop, though. he could never be sure he totally knew one. Raptors like Aven had it easier, being able to sense others’ motives.
Jameson ignored Bryce’s comment and steeled himself for the telling of his story. His eyes slipped closed and he relived it as he told it, the sights and sound of that time flooding back to him.
He’d woken to a noise. Something crashing to the floor elsewhere in the house. It was still night. Jameson jumped to his feet, knowing immediately something was wrong in the little house. He did not fear. Mother and Father were strong and could handle anything. The only emotions he felt were excitement about that day being his eleventh birthday, and an eagerness to discover if he could help. He pulled the covers on the bed down, revealing his little brother, still snoring lightly. Good.
Jameson crept silently down the hallway of the small farm house, his ears perked for another sign. A peek in his parent’s room told him they were out of bed, his baby sister still sleeping in her cradle. His parent’s bed was unmade, a blanket drooping to touch the floor. Jameson had never seen it like that before. Mother always made it first thing.
A strangled cry came from the kitchen and Jameson hurried that way. He pushed into the small but clean room to find his mother leaning against the door, her face hidden by her arm. She wasn’t… crying?
“Mother, what?”
She yelped and whirled. “Jameson, you scared me.”
Something was off. “Where’s father.”
Mother eyed him warily but didn’t speak, as if trying to decide what to tell him. Finally, she sank into a chair. “There is a battle raging on the other side of the forest. Father has gone to join it.”
Jameson’s fangs grew in his mouth at the words. “A battle. With the vampires? They’ve come to Five Hills?”
Mother nodded, her face solemn.
“I’ll go as well,” Jameson said, heading for the door, not thinking that his feet were bare and he was wearing nightclothes.
“Not you,” Mother said, in a voice that gave him pause.
He turned back to her, trying to think of how to convince her. “I’m big Mother, as big as any alpha male. My wolf is twice as big and strong. I can fight.”
She nodded gravely, her face breaking. “You can, and you will fight to protect the family.”
Jameson swallowed hard. Surely the vampires would not be able to find their farm? All shifter and switch houses were protected from vampires with strong magic. But if they had found Five Hills…
His mother stood and pinched his chin, bringing his face down to look at her. He was only eleven, but he was five foot, ten inches tall already, and his mother stopped several inches short of that. “Until Father returns, you will help me protect the young. The vampires have-” She broke off, shuddering, then forced herself to speak again. “They have a new weapon that can create an unhealable wound in a shifter, even through the change. We may be running by day’s end.”
True fear of the vampires threaded through Jameson for the first time in his short life. They’d always been a possibility, a story told by his friends to scare each other, only a distant menace that lent meaning to who he was, but now they were in his forest, and the look of agony on his mother’s face said shifters were dying, and more would be slain before the day was over.
Jameson fell into a chair, trying to keep his voice strong. “If we run, where shall we go?”
“Away,” was all his mother would say, and not another word was spoken between them until a knock came to the door.
Mother shot to her feet and Jameson loosed his wolf, shifting quickly and cleanly, knocking the chair he was near over, standing taller than the table. He growled at the closed door. No vampire would take his family.
“It’s William,” a muted voice said from the other side.
“William,” Mother gasped, and yanked at the door. Jameson waited until he saw and smelled that the male was alone, then he shifted quietly, pulling his simple clothes back on and tying their clever slip-ties that let them escape damage when a wolf had to shift quickly. While he dressed, he studied his uncle’s face.
William looked like all Montreats. Oversized. Bulky. Sharp lines at cheek and jaw. Wide face and striking blue eyes. He embraced Jameson’s mother, then held her arms as he solemnly told her, “I must wake the Steward now, and Jameson must go with me.”
Jameson shook his head. It was too early. Not for another year would he start his training, and his family needed him more than the Steward!
But his mother hung her head and wrung her hands and… nodded.
Jameson pulled himself away from the past to study the detached group of shifters inside the Black Bear Outfitting Company’s back room, measuring their response, trying to see in their eyes how many knew of that battle, the Reckoning, although how it had gotten that name, Jameson didn’t know. It had wiped out the entire town of shifters and switches. They had fought hard, and vampire numbers had been decimated as well, but not as decimated as switches. Every switch in the region, which was 98% of them, had come to fight. And to die. The vampires must have named the event, The Reckoning.
He met eyes with several in the crowd, measuring them. Not enough knew of it, and maybe none of them realized how easily vampires were thriving in the modern world. He swallowed hard, knowing that if they didn’t know that, they also wouldn’t have noticed how many vampires were running for government positions. Which to Jameson, meant something big was happening. Something that had been hidden until now. World domination? Human farming? None of it seemed beyond the vampires that had swept the forest that day.
Jameson was unique in his ability to discern a vampire by sight. Their red eyes were somehow hidden to all other shifters, although all could smell the pine and bitter herb odor of a vampire. It was as distinctive as the smell of a bear versus a wolf, but most shifters Jameson had questioned had never encountered anyone who scented that way. They couldn’t scent through the TV, so if the red eyes were hidden to others, none but Jameson would know exactly how high into the American government vampires had infiltrated.
Which was why he was here, finally sharing this story no matter how crazy it looked to these males and female, most of whom had been raised in families that never spoke of vampires. But that ended now. Even if there were no switches able to make the final kill, they, the shifters, still had a job to do. He would marshal the descendents of those few who’d made it through the Reckoning, and they would figure out how to control the vampires. Somehow. Jameson slipped back into his story
“Mother, no!”
“Yes, Jameson. Your duty comes before all else. It is our very purpose and we shall honor it as such.”
“Mother, you-”
She shushed him then. “I shall strike out with the pups this morn, for Asheville. The vampires are not going there.”
Jameson dug in his heels mentally. His first duty had to be with his family. William could take care of the Steward.
Before Jameson could speak, William’s head shot up and he moved near the still-open door of the house. “We must hurry,” he murmured.
Jameson’s Instinct, normally a slight whispering in his chest, roared to life, sparking him mercilessly. (go with William,) it demanded. Jameson had never experienced a message with such intensity from inside him before and it threw him for a moment, scattering his thoughts.
But will my family be safe? He asked the Instinct, knowing the Instinct answered no questions.
(Go!) it roared.
He knew he must obey.
Chapter 9
William watched him from the doorway, nodding sharply when their eyes met, then he shifted to a massive white wolf whose back stood taller than Jameson’s mother’s full height. The wolf loped out the door, fully expecting Jameson to follow.
Jameson kissed his mother on the cheek. “I shall find you as
soon as this duty is done. Tonight, tomorrow morning at the latest. Run true.”
She nodded sharply, pushing him toward the door, her face set, her eyes scared. “I love you,” she whispered. “Your father loves you. You are a good pup, and always have been. Run true.”
Jameson tried to whisper back to her, but tears choked his throat. He shifted instead, licked her face roughly, then followed his uncle out the door, into the sowed field that was their farm land, surrounded by the forest. Hunting land.
He ran, nose to Uncle’s tail, wondering that the smell of the vampires could carry so far. Pine, the scent was all around him all the time, but the vampire pine was different than the woods pine. His father had described it once as, “more still,” and Jameson had never understood what that meant, but now that he smelled his first vampire, he did.
The pine smell of the forest was alive, swirling with varied additions and concentrations, ebbing and flowing like particles and wind were one. But vampire pine? It smelled of a flat and dead wall of pine that sat in one spot and never moved. Always the same. Unchanging. Hostile and begrudging.
As he ran, he realized the bitter herb smell he’d been told of was also there. Under the pine, or perhaps behind it. Overwhelmed.
Mayhap the blood of vampires was fragrant enough to cause the smell to carry on the wind, and the faraway battle was spilling gallons of the stuff. Could it be almost over, already? He hoped so, fiercely, even as he marshaled his strength and stamina to keep his Uncle’s pace.
They followed the family’s footpath up the bluff toward the horse trail that wound through the Natanhala forest, both to Five Hills and to the neighboring towns. Wolf shifters never rode horses and there were no humans in Five Hills or the forest, but the deer shifters used horses to transport goods from the forest to the town. Jameson was glad for the wider and well maintained trail. They could go fast, finish whatever they were doing, and he could head to Asheville.
The Instinct reared inside him, letting out a single soulful howl that split Jameson’s mind in two even as his feet thundered on. William’s colossal wolf heard his own version and faltered on the path, tripping and rolling before somehow landing back on his feet and continuing his run. Mud clung to the fur on his back. His ears pointed behind him as he shifted his attention to Jameson, to hear what he would do. Follow, or not?
Jameson could not follow. Someone in his immediate family had died, and duty was the last thing he could think of.
The howl had been the Instinct mourning the loss, leaving Jameson bereft.
Jameson kept his speed and curved to the left, his claws churning the mud, his still-sleek wolf shooting between trees and hurdling fallen logs, till he reached the edge of the bluff. He skidded to a stop. His house sat below in the valley. The front door stood open as he had left it. It looked normal, quiet, but then the back door shot open and five large, dark males strode out. Vampires! He’d never seen one before. They all had wicked-looking knives in their hands, their clothing dark and lush, thick cloaks streaming behind them.
The Instinct had already quieted. It didn’t waste words, or grief, apparently.
Jameson cut off the howl of grief that tried to climb up his throat, replacing it with a snarl the likes of which he’d never heard. He crouched, ready to shoot himself off the bluff. If he landed true, he would tear through those vampires in only a few moments.
No! William’s voice rang through his head, even though they were shifted. Your mother knew that what we embark on was more important than the lives of one family. She wanted you to do your duty.
Jameson never faltered. This was a day of firsts, but even hearing the voice of the other white wolf would not keep him from killing every vampire, no matter that there were five of them. He would slaughter them, or die with his family. He should have been there to defend them, to go down fighting before them. To give them a chance to run.
His body arced in the air, whistling through slim branches and the needles of young, mangled trees, growing from the side of the bluff in an unnatural manner. As he almost flew, he marked the leader of the vampires. The one that was slightly in front. The one with blood on his blade, his chin, his dark shirt. If any of that blood belonged to Adelia and Augustus, his younger brother and sister, the vampire would suffer before Jameson tore it to pieces so small, they would never regenerate. Only a switch could kill vampire flesh for all, but shifters had their own way of stopping a vampire for good.
The vampire was bigger than the others, and older, his black hair had a single wide streak of pure white down the middle, and was perfectly cut in a Caesar style, laying forward on his scalp in glossy waves. His face was impossibly cruel, with glowing red eyes that slanted strangely at the corners. He stood on two legs, his form an approximation of any other person. But his angular body held none of the warmth and softness that Jameson had known from others his entire life. Hugging him would have been like hugging an axe blade.
Jameson hit the ground, the slope of the bluff and the way he had leapt causing his back paws to strike first, the claws there slicing through thick foliage before it could trip him. He landed well and was running immediately, running true, closing the distance between him and the bloodsuckers swiftly.
The leader sensed him, turning, an evil smile gracing his lips, but then Jameson was almost upon him, leaping from ten feet away, aiming for his throat. He would rip it clean through, would take the head off and eat it. The body could wander for millennia and that would not be torture enough, but it would have to do.
The other vampires still had not even noticed him, but Jameson would clear them all easily. The lead vampire moved with an uncanny speed, even as wind whistled in Jameson’s ears and his heartbeat slowed with anticipation of his first kill. Too young he was, but too old now, also. His mother…
The vampire squared with him and arced his blade hand through the air. Jameson would reach his throat, but the blade would slice him through at the same time. Acceptable. Jameson’s fangs throbbed, swelled, and the snarl that erupted from him echoed through the small valley, bouncing off his home that he would never live in again.
From behind, a white blur passed over him, strong jaws snatching him around the neck, pulling him from the trajectory of his death leap, tossing him in the air like he was still a pup of forty pounds.
William. The Keeper, bigger somehow, had come from behind, leapt, and pulled him away from the vampire’s blade, but also from his throat. Jameson hit the side of his house hard, his head connecting with a round stone from the chimney. His vision blurred and he dropped to the ground, stunned.
The white wolf gained its feet and turned to face the vampires who were falling upon them in a tight group, knives or claws extended. William snarled at them, a noise that made the two youngest vampires falter. One of them turned to run. The big vampire with the skunk-stripe through his hair grabbed him by the throat and tossed him at William. “Run not. Cowardice against those who are of no lasting danger to you will never be allowed.
The vampire twisted through the air, trying to grab hold of nothing. William’s beast grew larger still, until he was as big as the largest bear Jameson had ever seen. Jameson tried to get up. He threw up nothing, and fell to the ground again, his white legs splayed out. William snatched the vampire from the air, clamping his massive jaws around the male’s waist and biting through. The lead vampire frowned, but gripped his knife tighter. He sent three more vampires at William. The meadow ground ran red with blood.
Blackness closed around Jameson, and as he fell down the rabbit hole, he realized some of the blood had been William’s.
Jameson voice threatened to break so he stopped talking, even though there was more story to tell. He’d failed to protect his mother and siblings, but had not caused their death like he’d caused William’s. His fault. (life endures. blame is pointless.) His skin crawled and he shuddered, shaking it off.
All shifters in the room were silent, watching him solemnly. The female shifter’s ey
es crinkled in sympathy. Her brother leaned forward, almost off the edge of his chair. Flint’s hands were curled into bloodless fists.
Jameson cleared his throat. No one had ever heard the full story before. Could he even finish? “Um, shit.” He rubbed the back of his head and tried to pick up the thread of a story he’d hoped never to revisit. “My family was dead. All of them. I, ah, I’d blacked out, and when I woke up, William was still alive, but just barely. Bits and pieces of vampire bodies littered the ground, but only four. The leader had gotten away. Phazed, maybe.”
Jameson shuddered at the memory of trying to piece those vampires back together. Someone’s questioning grunt made him backtrack and explain. “Phazed. Some vampires can do it. You know, just… disappear. Only the strongest ones, and shifters who are as strong can hold them in place.”
A few males looked away from him, shifting nervously in their seats. Shit, he’d gone too far. It was 2017, they all knew teleportation was impossible. Science had proved it, he was sure. Not that science had ever gotten ahold of a vampire. Shit, he had to reel them back in.
He spoke quickly. “William spoke a few words before he died, but none of importance. None that told me what the job of a Keeper was, or how to wake the Steward, or even what the Steward was. I wandered the forest for months as the white wolf. My wolf had gotten bigger overnight, probably because I had become the Keeper. I never did see another vampire, but it didn’t matter. All the switches and shifters were dead. The forest was littered with their bodies, and when I couldn’t take it anymore, I, ah.”
