The Puppets and the Strings (A Werewolf's Saga Book 7)

by Michael Lampman

  He saw Kenar. He saw both of them as they walked along the road. It was just dirt then. The horse they were riding needed to rest, so they climbed off it and he led it to the stream. From the darkness of the trees, they saw him as he moved to the road. He looked strong and tall. His black hair looked neat. His face looked firm and stoic. He looked just like Jimmy, and seeing their faces as one, he realized that they really hadn’t changed all that much.

  Sasha turned to him and saw his eyes a thousand miles away. “What’s wrong?” She of course had never seen this place before. It just looked like a normal rural road out in the middle of a set of trees, and nothing more than that.

  He winced some feeling the memories as they washed over him. They blew his mind and made it feel numb.

  “This is where we met him that first time. This is where we met Kalima all those years ago.”

  Hearing this and knowing what must be rumbling inside his head, she understood the wince. “What was he like back then?” She always wondered about this. She of course knew Collins. She of course knew Jimmy, but she had never met the real Kalima. She never heard his stories. She never heard his dreams. She never knew him.

  He smiled with this, but it felt hollow and it was. “He really hasn’t changed.” He turned and looked at her. She sat on the front passenger seat directly in front of him.

  She saw the wonder and the fear in his eyes.

  “He was a dedicated man. He loved his wife. He loved his daughter. He loved both of them so much.”

  She understood the wonder, but not the fear. “How did she die?” She needed to clarify this, so she did, “How did is wife die back then?”

  Robert blinked as he felt his eyes water over some. The blinking didn’t stop them from flowing.

  “Wolves attacked them one day, trying to test him. They wanted to see what he could do. He fought them off, but then other Walkers came and attacked him as the wolf. They were masquerading as humans. He fought them. She was hit during the attack. An arrow took her life and thus, they took her away from him.”

  She now understood the tearing of his eyes. “You were there?” She knew that the two of them were close, but she didn’t know how that closeness ever began. Now was the time for her to know it, and thus, to know both of them.

  He looked back to the trees. He saw her inside the burning home. He saw her on the floor dying. He saw her die in Kalima’s arms.

  “Kenar and I were nearby. We tried to reach him and her, but we were too late. We came on the fire. We came on her death.”

  She felt Brandon staring at her from the back seat beside Robert, so she turned to him and their eyes met. She smiled with her likewise tearing eyes.

  He returned the look.

  “We should have tried to help him stay out of it like he wanted us to. We should have helped him more than we did. We were selfish. We wanted him to stand with us.”

  She heard Robert’s voice crack. She heard the pain flowing in with his words.

  “You said that wolves attacked him, so how could you have done that?” She didn’t agree with what he said. It wasn’t his fault as far as she could tell. “How could you have stopped it?”

  He smiled with this. “I know.” He did. It was just hard to accept that some times. And now was one of those times. “We tried to help him get back Sima from the humans. We tried to help him find her. We tried to do so much, but we failed.”

  She didn’t believe that either. “You did help him. He wouldn’t have stood with you if you didn’t.”

  He nodded, and wiped his face with both hands. “There were a lot of reasons he did that.” He watched Sharlia step to his side of the car. “And now here we are trying to find her all over again.”

  She opened the door. “Are you ready Rochie?” She saw his face. She knew why he felt as he did, but at the same time, they had a job to do, and it was time to get down to doing it.

  He understood this. “I am.” He got out of the car and joined her.

  Sasha opened the door and likewise did too.

  Brandon met them at the hood. “So where is this place?” He took a deep breath, took in the scents of the area and found nothing in them but pine and the decay of trees. It smelled sweet and innocent, even though he knew it wasn’t at all. Evil happened here. After hearing Robert talking to Sasha, he now knew it too.

  Together, they moved away from the car and headed into the trees. They walked for a few minutes until they came to a rather large clearing. Towards the back of it was a leveled ground. In front of this ground, closer to all of them, there stood two simple looking stones. They were small. They looked like nothing special. Sharlia knew they weren’t anything of the kind. They were special. They were even more than that.

  And so did Robert. He saw the flat ground and could just barely see what looked like several stones forming a right angle towards his right. Another set of stones went on from the angle. The wall was there. He stared at it with tears forming again in both eyes. He could almost see the house. He could almost smell the flames. He could almost hear his cries.

  Sharlia walked to the two simple stones and bent down in between them. She then went down to her knees.

  Sasha stood at Brandon’s side. With everything happening as it was, she no longer hated him. She no longer feared him. He was there, and that was all she needed now.

  “Is that their resting place?” She saw the stones. They made the area look rather simple. She could see the graves, and the markers they were meant to be.

  Sharlia cleared the stone on the left from a small twig that covered it. She deserved so much more than that.

  “This is Alana, his wife. This is where she lies now.” She looked back to the other stone on her right. “And this is her daughter Sima.” She felt saddened with thinking about her again, even after all of the time that passed, she still felt for her. She never had the chance to live life as she was meant to live it. “They both died before they lived.”

  Sasha gulped down a dry mouth. “What was she like, his daughter Sima?”

  Sharlia pouted with a simple shrug. “She was gifted. She could speak to you through her mind and the wisdom she carried was a thousand times clearer than any soothsayer ever was. She could see those at the flames. She could speak to those that could not reach it. She could see one’s soul even if they have nothing to see.”

  “The flames? How do you know about the flames?” Sasha gasped some. She had seen them once before. It happened the night Devish attacked her and Brandon. She saw them, saw the clearing, and loved them. She was a child of Kalima, so she saw them as he did. But as for another Walker knowing them, she just didn’t know. They couldn’t go to the flames. As far as she knew, they didn’t know they even existed.

  Sharlia bowed her head. “She told me about them. She allowed me to see them. She showed me what I would see one day.”

  “You would see them one day?” Robert asked. He didn’t like the sound of that. It meant she would have to die. It meant that she would have a soul. A Walker lacks a soul. He just didn’t understand.

  “She told me I would. She told me that all Walkers would one day.”

  Robert shook his head with that. He took it for what it was worth. Sima told her what she wanted to see. It made sense to him, so he left it there.

  “She was gifted then.” Sasha felt cold.

  Brandon bowed his head too. “They killed her for it. They killed her for having that gift.” He tried to understand all of this. He wasn’t quite sure that he did, so saying what he did was more for himself than to anyone else.

  Sharlia placed her hands to the ground in front of both stones. She felt the earth. She felt the soft grass beneath her hands. She felt the cool dampness of an open ground.

  “Devish feared her. He feared the truth. He feared what his parents told him through her. In the end she died so we could live.” She felt her right hand cooler than her left. The ground also felt soft. It didn’t feel right. “This one is different somehow.” She t
urned and looked back up to Rochie.

  Robert felt a cool chill flowing down his very core. “Do you think it’s been disturbed?”

  She felt it again, and again, it felt the same. It was different from the other one. “I think it has been.” She stood up. “I am not sure how long ago it was, but I do feel it.” She looked back at her feet. From standing up, the ground looked the same. If they did get into her grave, it had been done a long time ago. The grass and dirt had the time to resettle to look as the other one did. “But I do believe that it has been.”

  Sasha still didn’t understand this. “Are you saying that they dug up his daughter?”

  Sharlia took a heavy shrug. “The paper stated that this dust was collected here. It said that it was organic.” She looked at her.

  Sasha now had a chill flow down her arms too. “Are you saying that they used her to make the drug?” Just the thought made her feel ill. She couldn’t fathom it. She may have been an animal, feared by nearly everyone, but she still had a heart. She did have feelings too.

  Sharlia bowed her eyes, as she turned back to Rochie.

  Robert already knew this. Hearing it didn’t help him to accept it any more than he already did.

  “We should make sure of it.” He looked down at the two graves. “We should see if they are both still there, just to make sure of it.”

  Sharlia agreed. “I will go and get the shovels.” She had made sure that they brought some with them, just in case she found what she now did.

  Robert stopped her subtly before she turned from him. “We don’t need shovels.” He looked at Sasha and Brandon and then back to her again.

  Sharlia watched his eyes sparkling with their overarching blue shine.

  “I will remove the dirt. I don’t want a shovel spade to hit them.” He looked to the ground.

  Sharlia understood what he meant, so she stepped from the graves. She gave him six feet from the stones to do what he needed to do.

  Sasha and Brandon just watched.

  He let his power ebb through his heart and mind. He felt for the world. He felt for the lifelessness around him and brought everything forward in his mind. He reached for the dirt just near the front of his torn shoes. He felt every pebble. He felt every speck. With it all firmly grasped with in his mind, he then pulled.

  Sharlia, Sasha, and Brandon watched him raise his arms, and then watched as the ground in front of him began to turn. They watched as foot-by-foot chunks of grass-covered earth broke out and then moved.

  Each time he moved his arms another chunk pushed up and out of the ever-growing hole. He then moved it to his left side and slid all of it into a pile.

  With each wave of his arms—with each wave of his hands, the pile grew larger until it reached the height of his knees. A hole opened in front of him until a neat six-foot long gash was revealed beneath the stones. He continued until a large rectangle, three feet wide formed.

  It was the most incredible thing any of them had ever seen in their long lives.

  Finished with the first, feeling a plank of ancient wood now in his mind, he stopped. He then dropped his arms.

  Sharlia gasped. “Have you found her?” she asked.

  He looked at her with his eyes still sparkling with their Wanderer’s blue flare. He answered her with a nod.

  She moved forward one-step, and stopped at the foot of the now open grave. She looked down in to it, and there, maybe five feet or so down, she saw wood. It looked clean except for maybe a few dozen earthworms that were still covering it. They were all that was left.

  “You missed the worms?” she asked him with a playful nod.

  He took a deep breath. His power was still strong in his mind. He felt like a feather on the wind, blowing in a thousand different directions. He always felt this way when his power controlled him completely as this.

  “I can’t move them. They live.”

  She nodded. He had a great power, but he couldn’t move living objects. They had to be lifeless. They had to be inanimate. Anything living was outside of his power.

  He looked back in to the hole, and felt for the wood. With all of his strength, he now pulled.

  The wood came off together with one wave of his hands. He lifted them up and gently placed them next to the pile.

  With the coffin’s lid gone, she looked back in to the grave.

  Her skeleton looked dirty, and smeared, but she was still there. She had obviously lost her flesh a thousand years ago, but with that said, she still looked almost magical. She still looked right.

  Seeing her, Sharlia sighed. “She is intact.” She saw every bone. She saw every tooth. She looked complete.

  Robert nodded, brought his mind forward again, and reached for the grave to Sharlia’s right. Again, he felt for the dirt. Again, he pulled it off and pushed it in to another pile on the other side of the grave. He revealed what was beneath it quickly.

  When he finished, he again dropped his arms. This time, he let his blue eyes go. He finally breathed.

  Sharlia looked to the new hole on her right. She gasped.

  Robert did too.

  Sasha heard them and a shudder flew down her spine. “She’s gone isn’t she?”

  Brandon watched everything and needed support so he took Sasha’s right hand in to his left. He squeezed her without thinking of anything else.

  Sasha didn’t jump. She didn’t resist his touch. She squeezed his hand back.

  Sharlia bowed her head. “They took her. They took her body.” She raced her hands to her waist and felt her heart sink inside her chest. It was true. All of it was real. She felt sickened. She felt weak. She felt saddened beyond words to describe it right.

  Robert already lost his heart. “They used her to make their drug.” He saw her face. He saw her beautiful youth, and remembered what she could do. He didn’t understand it at all then, but now he did. Her gifts went far beyond life and death. She made them equal in a terrifying new way. The humans and the Walkers were nothing to her. She gave them an equal fight. “We have to find Jimmy. We have to tell him what we now know.” He didn’t know where to begin, but he did know this much.

  Sharlia could only agree. “But where? Where do we start looking for him?” She felt defeated. She too felt lost. She had no idea how to start or where.

  Sasha caught the scent. A heavy musk flew on the air and it raced around them coming from the trees. It came from everywhere. It came from behind them. It came from in front of them. It came from their right and their left. It told her one thing.

  “We are not alone.” She dropped Brandon’s hand. She spun back to the trees behind them and focused her mind. She found her eyes flaring back from it.

  Sharlia suddenly smelled them too. “I smell them.” She looked to her left, but another smell told her something else. “They smell like wolves, but it is different.” The mustiness of the wolf was unique. They smelled like moss covering a tree. They smelled stronger than most other things ever did. She smelled it now, but she also smelled something else surrounding the mustiness. She couldn’t describe it. She didn’t understand it. She did fear it.

  Brandon let his vampire’s eyes blaze to their red fire. “What are they?” He smelled the mustiness but he also smelled a sweetness that was hard to describe with it. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought there were humans with the wolves, but they were the same scent. It just didn’t make sense.

  Robert let his blue eyes burn again. He felt the trees. He found the ground. He felt everything. He just couldn’t feel the people, or whatever they were. He hated this about his gifts. They were powerful, but they were also limited. Sometimes, in some ways, they just didn’t help him all that much.

  Sharlia turned back to all of them. “I do not know what they are, but we are being watched.” She looked around the trees again. “Whoever they are, they are not moving.” She could smell this. The scents stayed where they were. With many of them, she could count at least ten different smells; she also knew someth
ing else. They were outnumbered. They may be strong and powerful Walkers, but they were still only four in number. She didn’t like the odds. “We cannot stay here. We must get back to my home in Glasgow.”

  Robert could agree with that. “Then let’s move back to the car.”

  Brandon took Sasha’s hand back in to his. “I will agree with that.”

  Slowly, they left the graves. Sharlia led the way.

  Sasha couldn’t leave the area entirely until she said one more thing. “We can’t leave her like that.”

  Sharlia kept moving. “We do not have the time.”

  Robert agreed with Sasha. “I’ll do it.” He let his power move, gripped the dirt piles with his mind, and with one great push, he refilled the holes. It was like seeing a dam crashing down with water with one great swoop. When they were completely covered, he chimed. “Done.”

  And they moved.

  Surprisingly, whoever was watching them, they didn’t move with them. Their scents just stayed in the trees. They didn’t follow them.

  They didn’t care why they didn’t.

  Collectively, they made it through the trees quickly, and together they didn’t stop until they reached Sharlia’s car. Just as quickly, they all climbed back inside it.

  Sharlia started the engine, and drove off just as quickly.

  They didn’t look back.

  “Who or what were they?” Brandon finally breathed.

  Sharlia just drove. “Whatever they were, they are gone now.” She was thankful for that. She didn’t bring a driver with them. She didn’t expect trouble, and now with everything that happened, she regretted that mistake. She should have known better.

  Robert had to get back to the matter at hand. “Whatever reasons they had, it doesn’t matter now. What matters is that they now know that we know about Sima.”