Aiden's Story (A Watcher Novel)

by S. J. West

  “Why don’t we give Aiden some time to get used to things,” Hanah suggested to Gil after I didn’t make a reply. “Now, off you go. It’s bed time.”

  As I tucked Gil’s covers around him, he hugged me around the neck.

  “Good night,” he said to me.

  The warmth of his little body and the intoxicating aroma of his blood just beneath the skin were almost more than I could take. I quickly stood, forcing him to let go of me and fled downstairs to seek Hanah out. She was still in the kitchen washing the dirty dishes when I found her. I forcefully spun her around to face me, causing her to drop the dish in her hand. It shattered when it hit the floor, but I didn’t care about a broken dish.

  I pressed my mouth to hers roughly in a desperate attempt to drive back my ravenous hunger for blood. In one swift motion, I ripped the dress she wore from her body, letting the remnants drop in place. Hanah whimpered but not because I had hurt her in anyway. She appeared to assume I simply wanted her body when in actuality I wanted so much more than that.

  For a week, I used Hanah as my crutch for those moments when the hunger for human blood came close to overwhelming my self-control. She didn’t seem to mind my rough handling of her. However, I began to see the physical toll it was exacting on her. After working in the fields all day, she would come home to cook our evening meal and then satisfy my sexual demands. In my mind, I rationalized my treatment of her as the only way to save the lives of everyone in the village.

  I knew I was just putting off the inevitable. Eventually, I would either kill a human or have to leave the village and isolate myself until I was able to control my hunger. Neither option appealed to me, and I grew increasingly frustrated as each day passed and I denied my body what it so desperately desired. I was literally a powder keg waiting for that one thing to light a fire within me and cause me to explode.

  I guess I should have anticipated what happened next, but I was so preoccupied with my own problems I chose to ignore the things that were taking place all around me.

  I’m sure your father or Malcolm has told you that our affliction not only made us crave the taste of human blood, but it also made us produce a strong male pheromone that rendered us irresistible to women. Over the years, I’ve seen firsthand how effective the pheromone we produced could be. I used it to my advantage countless times. Perhaps that was also one of the reasons Hanah didn’t mind all of my sexual advances.

  I think I didn’t notice the effect I was having on the other women of the village because a lot of them had already expressed their interest in me before I even married Hanah. After Hanah and I were married, I didn’t pay attention to what my presence was doing to the female population around me, both married and unwed. However, the husbands noticed and weren’t particularly happy about it.

  After defeating Eben in our brawl, the men of the village knew none of them could beat me in a one on one contest. Therefore, they did what many people do when they see someone as a threat to their way of life. They organized themselves into a mob and attacked.

  Mobs are usually made up of cowards who are both frightened and unreasonable. One afternoon when Hanah and I were walking back from weeding the wheat fields, Eben lead a group of six men to confront me. They stood on the road leading home, waiting for us.

  “We want you to leave our village!” Eben shouted at me. “And take your whore of a wife with you when you go! We’re tired of hearing her shameless moans every night. It’s disturbing our children.”

  “If that’s the first time your children have heard a woman moan,” I said, standing my ground in front of him, “then you’re obviously not satisfying your wife very well, Eben.”

  “Oh, she’s plenty satisfied,” he boasted. “She’s just not a wanton harlot like Hanah.”

  “You need to watch your tongue,” I said putting my face only inches away from his. “Your jealousy is showing. Hanah knew you weren’t man enough to satisfy her. Why do you think she kept refusing your offers to become your concubine?”

  “Aiden,” Hanah said, trying to warn me that I was just adding fuel to an already volatile situation.

  “After we kill you,” Eben growled, anger contorting his features. “We’ll all show Hanah what real men are.”

  And that was all it took for me to lose what little self-control I had over not only my temper but also my bloodlust.

  I grabbed Eben by the shoulders and sunk my teeth into the side of his neck, right over his throbbing artery.

  That first taste of human blood ignited a fire I had been trying to keep dormant. I don’t even think I can adequately describe the euphoria I received from drinking Eben’s blood. I imagine it’s the same type of sensation people who use drugs experience. From that moment on, I knew I couldn’t live without it, and I desperately needed more of it.

  None of the men who Eben brought with him to confront me that day made it home alive. I was too far-gone to care that Hanah was forced to witness my massacre of them, and I cared even less that she saw me phase as I caught the men one by one and drank my fill of their blood. I think it was only because I had curbed my hunger that she was spared the same fate as them.

  After I killed the last man, I forced myself to look back at Hanah.

  The horror I saw in her eyes still haunts me to this day. It was then I knew I was a true monster and not even the woman who promised to love me for the rest of her life could turn a blind eye on what I had just done.

  “Leave here,” she said to me breathlessly, her eyes wide in shock and revulsion. “And never come back. Never!”

  I had imagined this moment happening ever since the bloodlust began. I thought I would feel sad about it, but instead, all I felt was anger.

  I phased to stand in front of her and grabbed her by the throat, lifting her a few inches off the ground until she began to make choking noises.

  “The way I am now is as much your fault as it is mine,” I snarled at her. “If you hadn’t tempted me that night, my father never would have cursed me!”

  I tossed her away like a rag doll a few feet down the road.

  As Hanah laid there on the road, she began to cry. Her weeping touched a small part of my soul that could still feel pain. I turned my back on her then and phased away, leaving what I thought was my last chance at happiness and my heart behind.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  For months, I wandered from village to village. I killed when I needed to feed my hunger and felt almost no regret over the murders I committed. I became a predator, seeking out the most beautiful and wanted women in a town. I would seduce them, have sex with them, and then rip their throats out afterwards to satisfy every immoral craving I had. I didn’t care about them. I didn’t care about anything.

  I was angry.

  I was angry with myself, and I was angry with God. No matter how many times I prayed to Him, He never answered my cries for help. If He could abandon me so easily, then I saw no reason why I should obey any of His laws. I felt alone and forsaken. The only thing that brought me any form of comfort was consuming human blood. It was my drug of choice, and it made me numb to the pain I was in for a long time.

  Having the ability to kill at will was empowering. I felt like a god on Earth, and to the humans, I was the closest they would ever get to one without having to die first. After a while, I became bored with randomly killing strangers to satisfy my bloodlust. I needed a new challenge and desperately wanted something to help occupy my time.

  It wasn’t hard to find armies to join back in those days. I could change allegiances at will because there were always fights breaking out between the Sumerian city-states. Fighting gave me a purpose and a way to use my God given skill. Secretly, I drank the blood of my fallen enemies, purposely hiding what I was from those who fought alongside me.

  At exactly a year to the day after we were sent to Earth, I felt the pull God said we would all feel to return to the desert and report our progress to Mason. By that time, the notion seemed ludicrous to me, and I di
dn’t want to go there just to recount what a miserable failure I ended up being.

  But, as God had said, we wouldn’t have a choice. You know about our compulsion to be on time if we’re expected in a certain place. I felt that same force compel me to return to the desert to face my brother Watchers. Maybe after I told them about the atrocities I had committed, they would find a way to kill me. I knew from the battles I had fought in since joining the Babylonian forces that conventional human weapons could injure me but not end my life. My body was able to regenerate quickly without leaving any trace of a wound. At that time, death was preferable to the way I was living.

  Living…

  That’s not actually how I saw what I was doing. I was simply surviving the best way I knew how on my own.

  When the time came to meet with the others, I didn’t fight the urge to phase. I went there, ready to face whatever consequence awaited me.

  I wasn’t prepared for what I found when I got there.

  Some of my fellow Watchers were carrying babies in their arms. Others looked haggard like they hadn’t rested in a long time. They all looked worried.

  Desmond found me right away.

  “Were you able to follow the rule?” He asked me looking at my empty arms.

  I didn’t need to ask him to clarify his question.

  “No, I broke it,” I said, noticing he didn’t have a baby with him either. “Were you?”

  Desmond shook his head. “No. And it looks like we weren’t the only ones.”

  “Did you have a child with your wife?”

  “Yes,” he nodded, looking haunted by the fact. “I just didn’t bring him here. Did you have one?”

  I shook my head. “No. The woman I married was barren and couldn’t have any more children.”

  Desmond sighed heavily. “Then you were lucky you didn’t have to watch your wife die such a horrible death.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Desmond closed his eyes as if just thinking about what happened was almost more than he could bear.

  “Almost immediately after we made love for the first time,” he told me, “she went to sleep. At least, that’s what I thought at the time. When I couldn’t wake her up the next morning, I knew something wasn’t right and phased her away from the rest of the tribe until I could figure out what was wrong. When the child started growing inside her, I didn’t know what to do. There was no one I could turn to for help. So, I just waited until it decided to be born.”

  “It?” I asked, looking at the other children around us. They all looked like normal human babies to me.

  “The baby clawed its way out of her belly,” Desmond said, grimacing at the memory. “I almost killed it, but…” he had to stop for a moment as if he needed time to collect his thoughts. “When it looked at me, it started to whine. It knew I was its father.”

  “Why do you keep calling the baby it? Was it a boy or girl?”

  “A boy,” Desmond told me. “But I didn’t know it at the time. It was hard to tell because it didn’t look human. It looked like a monster.”

  “Watchers,” we all heard Mason call out to us from the same spot on the dune where he stood when we were first sent down. He was holding Jonathan in his arms and we all knew he had also broken God’s law. “Who of you remained faithful and did not break God’s rule during this last year?”

  Almost everyone hung his heads in shame. Besides Mason, only Malcolm and I seemed less self-conscience about our sin and looked around at the others.

  “And…who of you have given into the bloodlust as well?” Mason asked haltingly, obviously dreading the answers he knew would be coming.

  I would later learn that forty of us raised our hands that day. I did note that Desmond and Malcolm did not. At the time, Malcolm hadn’t given in to that side of himself yet. He would later, of course, but that’s his story to tell, not mine. Overall, forty-four of us would eventually give into our bloodlust.

  Even now, I can remember the look on Mason’s face when he realized how many of us were damned. For some reason, he always felt guilt for the sins we committed. I assume he thought there should have been something that he could have done to stop us. I don’t know why. I guess because he was supposed to be our leader.

  “Isaiah,” Mason said, “come take my son so I can go to our father and report our failure.”

  “Has He spoken to you since we’ve been here?” I asked Mason. “I’ve prayed but haven’t received any sort of reply from Him.”

  “I haven’t received a reply either, Aiden,” Mason told me. “But before He sent us here, His order was to report to Him after I spoke to all of you and that’s what I will do. I would ask that you all wait here for my return. Perhaps I’ll have more to tell you after I talk to Him in person.”

  Isaiah walked to the top of the dune and took Jonathan from Mason’s arms.

  Mason phased and we waited.

  “I’ll be right back,” Desmond told me before he phased. True to his word, he was back less than a minute later holding his son in his arms.

  “What’s his name?” I asked of the red headed boy he held.

  “I named him Carrig,” Desmond told me. “A strong name for someone who will need to be strong to survive the life I’ve doomed him to. I don’t know how he survives the transformation every night but he does.”

  “What does he look like after he transforms?”

  “It’s hard to explain,” Desmond said, a crinkle in his brow. “I guess the best way I can describe it is that he looks like a hairless dog that can stand upright on its back legs. But, even his back legs look odd, like they’re turned backward.”

  “How does a human looking baby change into what you just described?”

  “I don’t know,” Desmond said with a shake of his head. “But every night Carrig morphs into that creature, and every morning, he reverts back to his human form.”

  “Every night?” I asked astounded that the child could survive changing so frequently.

  “Yes. It’s even more gruesome to watch than it sounds. He can’t help but scream the entire time it’s happening to him,” Desmond admitted, the pain of his own son’s agony etched on his face.

  “What if you phased him before nightfall?” I suggested. “It’s not night everywhere in the world at the same time. Maybe you could prevent the transformation from happening that way.”

  “I suppose I could try,” Desmond said, obviously having not thought about this solution before now.

  “I live on the other side of the world,” a Watcher by the name of Gelar said, obviously having overheard our conversation.

  We would learn that he chose to live with an aboriginal tribe in the country that would later be known as Australia.

  “We could trade off and see if it prevents them from changing,” Gelar suggested, cradling his own child, a daughter, in his arms. “I don’t think I can take her screams anymore. I am willing to do anything.”

  “Then let’s try it, brother,” Desmond said, holding out his hand to Gelar as they made their pact.

  I would later come to regret making my suggestion to Desmond. As you know, your sister Abby wasn’t taken somewhere every night so she wouldn’t change into a werewolf. There was a very good reason for that. But I’ll get to that part of the story soon enough.

  When Mason phased back to Earth, I think every one of us gasped at his new appearance. I know you’ve seen pictures of Mason before the Tear was sealed, especially his wedding pictures with Jess. The gash on his face used to be much worse than what you’ve seen. When he first came back, the mark was so deep you could actually see bone through the laceration. None of us asked how he received the injury. We all just assumed God did it to Mason for failing in his mission on Earth. Blood was still pooling out of his wound when Mason took Jonathan back from Isaiah. He turned to us with a haunted look in his eyes and spoke.

  “We will have to live with our sin until a time comes when we can be redeemed. Right now, I suggest we all take ca
re of our children and protect them from themselves and others. If they ever drink human blood, I fear it will damn their souls forever. Those of you who have not given into your bloodlust must try to keep resisting the urge or you will be just as damned.” Mason fell silent and looked at those of us who had already drank the blood of humans. “And to those of you who have succumbed to the curse…all I can say is that I’m sorry I failed you. I should have been a better leader to you. I should have done more to protect you.”

  I don’t know what Mason thought he could have done to help. None of us knew where the others were located during the past year. It wasn’t as if he could have come to us with a warning about what would happen if we disobeyed God’s edict.

  “I plan to go into seclusion with my son,” Mason said, holding a squirming Jonathan close to his chest. “I feel it’s the only way I can properly keep him safe. I’m sure the rest of you will figure out your own methods to protect your children. I will continue to come to this place every year. I urge those of you who need my help to meet me here. I will do whatever I can to help you. I pray that the Lord’s mercy will find us all one day so we can be forgiven of the sins we have committed. Until that time comes, let us try to remember why we were sent here in the first place and do our best to continue our mission.”

  Mason phased. A few more Watchers phased, and I didn’t see many of them for a very long time. Gelar and I followed Desmond to his home in the mountains of Eastern Europe. I went there because I wanted to keep in touch with Desmond during the years to come. Gelar then phased us both near his village so we knew where he could be found. I didn’t phase either of them where I was staying. Since neither of them had drunk human blood, I didn’t want them to witness what I had become.

  I prayed Desmond would be able to keep himself from giving into the craving. Of the two of us, I felt he was the better man, and might one day earn his forgiveness from God. I, on the other hand, saw no possibility of forgiveness in my future. I was a damned soul with no future worth living. Since I had nothing to lose, I decided to concentrate on why I wanted to come to Earth in the first place.