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

by Michael Lampman

  Sharlia shuddered with that. She knew it too. “Then we are going to need the numbers. My home is safe. I have twenty Walkers there. They are loyal and strong. We will be safe there.”

  Sasha wasn’t so sure about this. “If the humans have this drug, can we be sure of anything anymore?”

  Sharlia didn’t accept this. “We will be safe.” She left it at that. Her family was the strongest of the families. She had the largest one too. Surrounded by her people, she knew they would be safe. She didn’t doubt it at all.

  Robert agreed with Sasha, but he kept quiet. This was not the time to fight. They had to stick together and come up with a plan. They had to find Kalima. They needed him now, more than ever.

  Everyone fell silent.

  They didn’t breathe until they reached the safety of the Sharlia family’s Scotland home.

  19

  He left the house a little after six in the evening and headed straight to the diner. All the way there, he let his thoughts wander in a single direction. He thought about Angel. He hoped she would be there. He hoped he was ready for this. He wasn’t so sure of either of these.

  His hair was perfect. He made sure he trimmed it just right. He wore it short, not the style he wanted, he would have preferred long and wavy, but he kept it military style, neat and tight. He showered twice. After the first one, he put on too much cologne, which made him stink to the point to where he couldn’t breathe right, so he took the second one and used less the second time. He thought he smelled just right. He then spent time trying on clothes. At first he was going to wear a suit and tie, but then decided against that. It looked too formal. It was also black, which made him look like he was going to funeral and was not the look he was going for, so thankfully, he decided against it. In the end, he settled on a dress shirt, blue to match his eyes, and a pair of blue jeans. He did wear the dress shoes though. He wanted to look neat, which the shoes helped with the look. When he was ready, he left the house.

  Arriving at the diner, he found it calm. Very few people were there, and he liked that. It made him feel comfortable, but as he thought about it, it didn’t. So few people would mean little distraction, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. It meant that they would have to talk to each other. It meant that he would have to have something to say. With that, he didn’t know if he could do it. He had never been so scared in his life.

  He took a booth seat. He made himself comfortable, as he could, and folded his hands together in front of him. He then waited. He stared at his hands as he did. Now alone, his thoughts exploded inside his head.

  What would I do if she doesn’t come tonight? This crossed his mind again, and it made him feel instantly concerned. The feeling told him that it may actually happen, and that made it feel even worse. It just didn’t help him and he knew why. He just didn’t have an answer for it.

  An older couple opened the door and stepped inside.

  He turned to them and watched them move to the booth just in front of him, along the back wall. They sat down. The woman smiled at him as her husband sat between them. He returned it awkwardly. It made him look at the bench opposite from him.

  She’s not coming. It made his heart sink some. It made him bow his head. He was right. She would have been there by now, he was sure of it. He now didn’t know what to do.

  “Hi Casey,” a soft voice came from his left.

  An angel sang to him. The voice sounded just like one. He imagined it many times over the past few hours.

  He turned to it and saw her standing on his left. The smell of her floral perfume coursed over him smelling like the haze of springtime incense. It covered him completely. It warmed his very soul.

  She did come. He smiled. “Hi Angel.” He stood up. With the table in front of him, he did it with an awkward bend at the knees. The table let him go no further than that so he just squatted. He realized how stupid it must have looked instantly, so he just sat back down as fast as he could.

  She thought he looked as cute as he ever had. “There’s no need to get up.” She moved quickly and sat down across from him. As she did so, she took off the light shiny jacket she wore and sat it down beside her on the booth’s bench. “I’ll just join you instead.”

  He gulped with just the sounds of her voice alone. “I’m glad you came.”

  She emphatically nodded. “I’m glad I came too.” She made herself comfortable.

  He watched her every movement. When she finally relaxed, and folded her hands in front of her on top of the table, he now felt himself completely lost. He didn’t know how to start this.

  She went ahead on her own. “Thank you for coming back here and meeting me.” Her face lit up.

  He could feel it light up in his eyes. She almost looked as bright as the sun does when it finally comes out from behind a dark cloud on a previously wet and rainy day. It looked just as blinding too. If he stared at her too long, he knew that the sight would burn him. It burned his mind with her radiance.

  “Thanks for meeting me too.” Boy that sounded dumb, you can do better than that. He thought about this some, and suddenly questions burst inside his mind. It seemed that he was better at this than he thought he was. “How did you know to come here and meet me anyway?” It sounded like a good one to start with too. He felt proud of himself. He sounded completely natural. Or maybe it was just her. He didn’t know which.

  She laughed. When she finished it, she kept her face just as bright. “I told you last night that I would meet you here silly.” She looked down at her hands, and then quickly looked up again. Their eyes met.

  Scratch that, he was bad at this. He really was. “Oh…” He felt his face melt by its own heat. And here came the stupid in him again too. “I uh…” He couldn’t help it. It just did.

  She kept this light. “It’s okay Casey.” She looked down at her hands. “I knew when to come because it was the same time yesterday.” She looked up. “So tell me about yourself?” She expected him to do this, to be nervous. She prepared to do all of the leading. She was happy to do it too.

  He now stared at his hands. He actually counted every finger on them. He still had ten of them in total. Eight, if you counted the thumbs separately.

  She saw how hard it was for him. She could see him thinking. She could see him struggling with it.

  “How long have you been in Darlington again?”

  He counted the knuckles too. “About a year I think.”

  “You think?”

  He felt stunned. He had never been struck with lightning before, but right then, he did think he was. He now knew how it felt.

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t like to talk much, do you?” She felt rather bad for him now. He wasn’t just shy; he acted unsure of himself.

  He felt it as strongly as anything else he ever did. “I don’t get out much. We’ve kept to ourselves.” He had to give her something, so he kept to the God’s honest truth. What could it hurt?

  “Are you from the Witness Protection Agency or something?” She laughed hard with this.

  He knew that she meant it as a joke, even though she was more right about it than she would ever know.

  “Something like that, yes” he quipped.

  She felt him as being serious, didn’t think much more about it, so she continued with getting to know him. “I’ve never seen you at school before. Did you come here too late to go last year?”

  He kept his eyes down. “We moved here. I didn’t attend school.”

  “You’re homeschooled then?”

  He nodded. He swallowed some too.

  “Are you going to go?”

  He ran out of things to count, so he started with the fingers all over again. “I’m not sure yet. I would like to go.”

  She had to continue with that point. “Then why don’t you?”

  “It’s been hard.” He shook his head. He may have shaken his shoulders—he wasn’t sure of that either.

  She saw him do both clearly. �
�I wish I didn’t have to go to school.” She thought she understood what he said too. “It must be nice to just stay home, not have to deal with everyone telling you what to do all the time. Come and go, as you want to. Get up when you want to. It must be nice.”

  He didn’t agree with her at all. “It’s not really like that at all.” He finally looked up.

  Again, she met his stare. She saw the pain in his eyes. “Do your parents make you do it?”

  Her eyes hypnotized him. They had to be doing it. He felt his own thoughts suddenly melt away. As they did so, he spoke clearer than ever.

  “My dad and mom have been great. They’re just against it. They think it’s too dangerous for me to go.”

  “Why is that?” She felt intrigued.

  He liked it that she was trying to understand him. It made him feel special. It felt nice being able to talk with someone that he didn’t know. It was a beautiful feeling, so he just dwelled in it.

  “Well my dad is a…” he cut himself off quickly. He almost told her about him being a werewolf, and it suddenly made him feel nervous again. Oh, how quickly he almost gave it all away. Now you know why I did what I did. He even heard his father voice. It even made him cringe.

  She didn’t understand any of this. “He’s a what?” But she did truly want to know. She wanted to know him, now more than ever.

  He thought about this some before he could answer her. He did come up with something rather quickly. “His job makes him move around a lot.” That sounded good. In fact, he could even remember his mom telling a woman at the grocery store something like that before. If it was good for her, it was good for him.

  She accepted this. “Is he with the Army or something?”

  He shrugged. “He’s with the government. It’s kind of top secret stuff.” He felt himself blush. He felt like he was lying suddenly. He felt exposed.

  She smiled. “That sounds exciting.”

  He didn’t think that at all. “It makes it hard to get to know people. We don’t spend a lot of time in one place for very long.”

  He truly looked sad.

  “I can’t imagine having to move around a lot like that.” She leaned over her hands.

  She came so much closer to him that it made him cringe with joy. His heart nearly skipped a beat too.

  “I’ve lived here my whole life and haven’t gone anywhere.”

  She looked so calm and relaxed. She smelled so nice.

  “Do you live with your parents?” He started liking this conversation. She was so easy to talk with that it was starting to surprise him some with how easy it really was. She made him feel relaxed too. He really liked her for it. He didn’t stutter once.

  She shrugged softly. “My parents died when I was very young. I live with my grandparents. I’ve been with them my whole life.” She looked back up.

  Her eyes sparkled like a glorious loving blaze. He couldn’t take his eyes off them. Her hypnosis only added to the power emanating from her voice. He couldn’t move if he wanted to. He couldn’t break himself from that power. It locked him in place and melted his will. He was hers without a second thought.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” He cast her a sly grin.

  She shrugged again. “It’s okay. I never knew them. My grandparents travel a lot too. Except they leave me home a lot when they go out on their trips. It’s nice really. I can take care of myself.” Her face then turned enlightened even more than it already looked. “I know…let’s go grab a movie.”

  The looked excited him more than he ever thought was possible. In fact, he nearly fell off the bench. The table kept him where he was.

  “Sure. I would love to.” He wasn’t sure if he did, but it no longer mattered what he thought. Again, he was hers, like it or not.

  “Great.” She stood up so fast, that he nearly fell over again.

  Thank God for the table. He stood up too.

  She put her jacket back on. “There’s a good romance playing at the theater in the mall. It’s called Velocity Street or something like that. We could go see it.”

  He nodded emphatically. He didn’t care what they did, as long as they were together and continued with this.

  She said nothing else. She just grabbed his right hand with hers, pulled him out from behind the table and led him outside.

  She continued down the street.

  Now the only thing on his mind was if he was going to be able to hold her hand during the movie. He just hoped he could. He wanted to feel her and nothing else mattered to him more than that.

  20

  “Will you stop pacing? You’re starting to make me feel worried and I’m not about to start being paranoid with you. Casey needs one of us to be sane for his sake.” Ever since their baby boy left for his date, she could feel Jimmy’s anxiousness roaming inside him. She had some too, but she was trying to stay strong with this. She didn’t have the choice. Someone had to do it.

  Jimmy moved to the bay window at the front of their home and stopped. He looked outside at the street. Night had come, and the streetlights were blazing over it. He didn’t see Casey. He didn’t see people. He saw nothing at all.

  He didn’t answer her. She hated that. “Jimmy?”

  He turned back. “I’m sorry honey, but I can’t help myself.” He hugged himself with his own arms tightly. He needed the support. “I just can’t help but wonder if we’re doing the right thing.”

  She moved behind him, wrapped her arms around his waist and flushed her face in to his back.

  “I know this is hard, it’s hard for me, but you know we had to do this. We couldn’t keep him locked away with us forever.” She felt his heart racing. She felt his breaths slowly flowing. His massive body’s heat warmed her completely. “Besides, this is part of being a parent. Sometimes, we have to learn to let go.”

  He already accepted this. “It’s still damn hard to do it.” He spun around within her embrace and brought himself face to face with her. He rested his chin on her forehead.

  With all of this happening, with knowing how he felt, she finally thought about everything that happened. She thought about the day Casey was born. It was a hot fall night. They still lived in her house in Redford Forge then. She gave birth to him in their bedroom. It was such a painful experience that she didn’t know if she would be able to make it through it or not. When it was over, and he shined his first smile at her, she knew it was worth it. He was worth everything. She didn’t think she would ever be able to have children. Wanderers, like their Walker parents couldn’t have kids. Only humans had that gift, and they generally shunned Wanderers like they did with Walkers. When she found out she was pregnant, it shook her world. Apparently, Jimmy carried his mother’s side of fertility. She didn’t know how that worked, but she didn’t care. She was just on cloud nine all the way. He brought something in to her long life that she never knew she lacked until she realized she did.

  She then remembered how incredibly nervous Jimmy was when he first held his baby boy in his arms. She remembered how his eyes looked. She saw the look on his face. He looked proud, but yet scared. He had tears in his eyes. He had the fear of what he was then flaring through them. They both became parents. He became one again. She knew why he shed the tears. She agreed with everything he felt.

  When she was brought up, her father loved her and protected her from the very beginning, even though he was a Nightwalker. She never doubted how he felt for her. She knew he loved her. When he was taken from her and killed for what he was, she felt lost and devastated. She knew of the connection the two of them had. She saw this too with Jimmy. He would do anything to keep his family safe. In thinking about all of this, she suddenly realized something else about what she felt. It had been hidden but was there again. She did feel. She felt Jimmy’s mind rambling inside her own. She felt his emotions just as strongly as she felt hers. He felt clearer to her than she had remembered in days, if not weeks. It struck her hard. She had to talk about this.

  “Can I ask you s
omething?”

  He pulled from her slightly, and looked down at her face. “Anything and always.”

  She looked him in the eyes. “Did you get the chance to change?” She had to know.

  He casually shook his head. “I didn’t get the chance. You interrupted me before I could.” He thought she already knew. “Why?”

  She shook her head too. “Could you, if I hadn’t stopped you, could you have changed?”

  He didn’t know where she was going with this. “I almost did. I was just about to pull the eyes out from the back of my mind just as you called to me.” He also saw a strange look in her eyes. She didn’t look right to him. Six years of marriage, and with everything they had gone through, he knew her well enough to see this. “What’s wrong?”

  She again shook her head. “I’m not sure.” She pulled herself out of his arms, and moved back to the center of the living room. “I’ve been feeling rather odd lately.” She bowed her head. “I haven’t felt right.”

  He now felt concerned. “What do you mean by that?” He had never known her to feel like this, or at least confide in him about it before now anyway. When she had her mind given back to her, with all of her memories being intact, she was always strong. She was always confirmed within her own mind. She knew who she was, without a doubt about it. She never needed his help.

  “I’m finding it hard to think sometimes.” She looked back at him.

  Their eyes met.

  He saw the confusion in hers. “You’re having trouble with your gifts?” Again, he knew her better than anyone ever would—except for her brother of course.

  “I’ve been having trouble seeing your thoughts lately.” She felt the need to explain this, if she could, so she tried. “I thought it was because of everything that was going on with Casey. I thought it was your confusion about what to do about him, that this was causing you to block me, but now, I can see you clearly. I can see your every thought; I can feel your every feeling, but sometimes, I can’t see anything.” She paused. She had to know this too. “You haven’t been blocking me have you?”