He strongly shook his head with this. “I would never block you. You should be able to read my thoughts and feelings anytime you want. I’ve kept myself open to you since our wedding, just as I promised you I would.” He thought she doubted him with this, so he had to make sure that she knew that it wasn’t he doing it to her.
She chuckled some with this. “I know you have.” That wasn’t her concern at all. She just had to be sure first. “I know you kept your promise to me, but it has to be something that is causing what I feel.” She started feeling nervous and she didn’t know why. “Sometimes I have trouble in focusing my thoughts. Sometimes, I feel like I’m in a haze or something like it. I feel like I’m not myself.” Wanderers such as her always had the ability to see things around them and inside them, things that no one else could ever see. They felt the world very differently. They had a sense of it breathing. They could tell when things weren’t right. They felt it inside their very bones. It was just difficult to explain this to someone who couldn’t feel it like they could. She was having that trouble now, even though she knew Jimmy could feel it all too. After all, he was also a Wanderer. He would understand her if she could just say it the right way. As she thought about how to do it, Casey’s face popped inside her head like a sledgehammer striking a steel pike right next to her head. It rattled her with true strength. “Casey?” It had to have something to do with him. It told her this.
He tried to understand. “What about Casey?”
She felt a shudder now too. It raked through her like the vibrations from the same hammer and steel.
“When you’re around him, have you ever felt anything in him? Have you ever been able to read his mind?”
He still tried. “What are you talking about? What does this have to do with Casey?”
She sighed. “Can you see inside your son’s thoughts?” she stressed.
He sighed too. He turned back to the window and looked back outside. He looked at the night. He looked inside his own. He didn’t know where she was going with this, but heard her heart racing inside her chest. He felt her body convulse like waves of energy were flaring through her. This was obviously important to her, so he did think about her question. He thought about it a lot. When he finished, he turned back around and faced her.
“I can’t read him.” There was also more to it than that. She should know this too. “If he carries the Walker side in him, it wouldn’t surprise me if he couldn’t be read. No one can read me unless I let them in. He might be the same way.”
She did know it. “Then maybe he does have a gift?” She remembered back to all of the times she had been around him. To be frank about it, they always were. She never saw his thoughts even when he was small. She never thought anything about it, but she did still see inside Jimmy’s mind. She saw everything as he promised her, but there was also a time when all of that stopped. It wasn’t that long ago. She was sure of it.
He couldn’t agree less. “We would know it if he did. He shows nothing.”
She looked back to the kitchen behind her, and hugged herself tightly with her arms. She felt cold suddenly. The feeling added to everything else.
“His eyes are blue,” she said without thinking it. It just came out.
He now felt confused again. “What the hell does that have to do with anything? Many people have blue eyes—I’ve seen them.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what?”
She didn’t know why she said this. It just felt important. Again, it struck her all by itself.
“I’m not sure Jimmy.” She turned back and faced him. “I just have this feeling that when I come around Casey, I feel disjointed. I feel lost. I can’t think.”
He shrugged hard. “That could be anything.” Again, he didn’t agree with any of this. It just didn’t make sense.
It did to her. “I feel dizzy and unfocused around him. I don’t know why, I just do.”
He heard the dizzy part of what she just said, and he felt a flash of heat flare into his face. It came so strongly that it nearly bowled him over. It was such a blast. What happened to him in the dinner now rushed in to his head.
“I felt something like that too. I felt dizzy and unfocused.”
She perked straight up. “When?”
He replayed the images that he felt when it happened. He spoke this to her, as he did it in his own mind. “I went to find Casey and I found him in the diner on Main Street, the Hopper, or whatever the place is called, when I suddenly felt this wave of blankness flow over my mind. It was almost strong enough to knock me to my knees. I have never felt anything like it before in my life.” He then saw Casey run to his side to help him. It was in that moment that it brought his son to his side again too. It made him trust him more because of it.
She felt a cold chill rake down her spine as she listened. She didn’t know what that meant, but it did mean something. She was sure of that now.
“What do you think caused it?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure.” He looked down, thought about it for a second more, found nothing, so he looked up again. “I just don’t know. It came and then went. It faded just as fast.”
She now felt more worried than ever. “What does it mean?” She looked around their small home. When they found it, not a year ago, she fell in love with the place instantly. It reminded her of her house in Redford Forge. It felt small, but warm. It felt like home to her too.
He didn’t know enough to think much about it. “I don’t know.” He watched her closely. Again, he could feel her heart beating in her chest. He could feel her breathing coming in shallow, ebbing lower and then picking up again. He could feel her body wanting to sweat. His wolf’s senses told him how worried she really was. “If you are as worried about this, as I’m feeling you are, there is only one place I can go to find out what this means.” He also knew she was going to like hearing this either. It meant exposing themselves. It meant shining a light on to all of them. “I can go to the flames.” He wasn’t sure if he liked it any more than she would.
She didn’t. “You can’t do that.” The flames were the place between the living and the dead. The place was their sanctuary, between the lives they lived and lives they lost. Going there would mean allowing those who are dead, have been dead, or will be dead, to see you standing before it with in your life. They would be able to see your thoughts. They would be able to see your life as you are now living it. They would know instantly about Casey. In other words, it was a risk that she didn’t think they should take, no matter how she felt about anything else.
He couldn’t agree more. “I know.” He too thought about Casey. “It would expose him to the Wanderers.” He knew everything about the land in between the worlds. He used the flames to get answers many times in the past, so he knew how dangerous they were, but at the same time, it offered them what he got from them in the past. The flames were eternal. They were all seeing. They were the essence of everything that had ever existed throughout the ages of all of time itself. It was the only thing; he could think of to find what they were looking for. She knew this too—maybe better than he did. At the same time, he also knew that it would only help those who wished to hurt them too. It was all seeing, but it could only be used if they were also using it. You had to go to them. You had to be dead and reborn. He also knew that all of the Wanderers were living on earth, and with most of them not knowing who they were, it didn’t seem possible that someone bad would see him. As for the Walkers, they didn’t even know that the place existed in the first place. The humans were blind to it. This made it feel safe to him. “But it also has to be used by them. I don’t think any of them know this.”
She bowed her eyes, thinking. When she finished, she looked up again. “Can you be sure of that?” If he were, she would let him do it. She had never used the flames before. Hell, up until six years ago, she didn’t even know who she was, let alone of what she could do with the place. He used them all the time. He tal
ked with his daughter there. He talked with the memory of Kenny. It helped him a lot.
He smiled, moved to her, and retook her into his arms. “I know that most of the Wanderers don’t know who they are. I know that Kenny would have told me or warned me about them, if they did discover their true identities. Most of them fought with us anyway. They wouldn’t turn against us now. He would have made sure of it.” He hugged her tightly to his chest.
It made her mind comforted completely just with his touch. What he told her, well that was another story entirely. This made her mind flare with a new set of fears.
“How would Kenny keep you informed? You haven’t been to the flames in years.” He stopped going there after Casey was around a year old. He stayed away for him and them.
He pouted some before he answered her. Again, she wasn’t going to like what he was about to tell her.
“I have spoken to him outside of the flames. I have talked with him in my mind.”
He was right. She didn’t like it at all. “You have been talking with him? You let him see your thoughts. How could you do that? When did you?” She did trust Kenny or Joseph, as he’s known today, or Kenar as he was known along time ago, he proved it to her so many times in the past, but when it came to his gifts, they still haunted her some. He could see through anyone’s mind and see anything he wanted to see within them. He didn’t have to try hard either. He was the most gifted mind reader that had ever lived. He was stronger than even Satar, Kalima’s father. No one could match his strength. Why Jimmy didn’t tell her this, it boggled her mind. She thought he was keeping all of them blocked. As the black wolf, and the son of a Blood Walker, she knew he could. It was a learned gift, and one that he learned a long time ago. Only he had the power to block all of them from their gifts if he wanted to. He would have to let them in, which she now knew he obviously did with someone other than her.
He nodded with this. It made him hug her tighter. “I haven’t spoken with him for a long time now, but he does have my thoughts. He has just chosen not to read them.”
“What if he has used what you told him and someone is reading his thoughts? It wouldn’t be the first time that happened, you know.” This was the boggled part of her now overly worried thoughts. She just couldn’t believe that he did it.
He understood her fear. “I have done it as a way to keep us safe. Kenny would never let someone read his thoughts as Devish did. No one else could do it anyway. Devish was the last true mind-reader with that kind of power.” He knew his friend well.
She still didn’t like this. “You can.” She didn’t know why she said this, and after saying it, she regretted it instantly. After all, he was the only one of his kind. “I’m sorry. You just threw me a curveball on that one.”
He understood this too. “Look, I know I should have told you about this, but I needed to keep in touch with him to know about the others that may harm us. He can see through people, before they can even do it to themselves. And as for my all-powerful self, I maybe a mind-reader like him, but without the training in it, I’m not very good at it anyway.” He was right. He rarely used his father’s side in him. The wolf was all he let out. The other things, he just ignored. His father disserved nothing from him.
She chuckled some with this. Knowing that Kenar and Jimmy had been keeping open to each other over all of this time, it suddenly dawned on her that nothing happened. No one came for them. No one knew where they lived. It did make her relaxed. She was confident with this now too.
“Okay.” She looked up, but kept herself in his arms. “Go to the flames and find out what’s going on.” She smiled.
He returned her look. “I promise to keep it simple and clear. They will not learn about him, I promise you.” He kissed her gently on the forehead.
The kiss wasn’t enough for her, so she reached up to his lips with her own.
They kissed briefly but passionately.
She loved his taste as if it was the first time she tasted it. It was as strong as ever. She would never let it go.
“It’s probably nothing any way.” She finally laughed.
He knew she didn’t think it was. “I’ll head out now. Stay home and keep down the fort.” He released her grip. He then turned to the door on his left.
“Jimmy, be careful.”
He smiled. “I’m always careful.”
She watched him leave.
She now didn’t know what to think or how to feel. Her mind was no longer hazing, but now felt completely locked. It felt locked with dread. This made her feel a thousand times worse.
21
They made it back to Sharlia’s home near Glasgow in about a half an hour. She bought the place not long after she bought the land with Kalima’s family. She wanted to stay close to them. She wanted to protect them. Now realizing what happened, she obviously failed in her task. She hated herself for it too.
The main house sat just off the road. The property itself consisted of four buildings, with the main house in the center of the three others, which flanked it. The entire place looked simple and non-discrete. A small stoned wall likewise surrounded the entire compound, maybe two feet in height. The place was not meant to stick out from the surrounding homes, which it didn’t. It wasn’t meant to be a fortress. It wasn’t meant for protection. It was a place to relax.
Sasha saw this, and didn’t agree in coming there. “This is not a safe place to be—not with whomever that was out in the trees with us.” She thought Sharlia would know this too, but with them coming there, she doubted it. It surprised her nonetheless. “These walls wouldn’t stop a goat from coming inside.”
“This place is safe Sasha. We are protected here.” Sharlia didn’t need to think of this, so she snapped back at her. The sound echoed within her voice.
Sasha heard her, so she dropped her thoughts. They weren’t going to be there for long anyway, so she guessed it didn’t matter. Besides, she trusted Sharlia. She had never led them wrong before, so why would she start it now.
They all got out of the car.
Sharlia led them through the gate, a small enclave between the stoned walls at the front of the main building. From there, she continued through the foyer, to a side room just off it, on the left from the front door. There, she threw her car keys to the large dining room table that sat in the center of the room. Four chairs sat on each side of the table. She went to the farthest from the door, and there she stopped. There she had to think.
Sasha looked back at Brandon, who followed her, and to Robert just on her left.
Robert agreed with Sasha about coming there. “We shouldn’t stay here long, my ladies. Whoever was in the trees with us are bound to continue following us. They know we’re here.”
Sharlia hugged herself. “We will.” She had to think about all of this. They had to know where to go before she could. As for them being there, she was right. She had three wolves patrolling the wall. She had two Nightwalkers standing at the front of two of the other buildings. Her people surrounded them. They were well protected.
Brandon had other things on his mind. “I can’t believe that they would use a body like that. How could they do it?” He kept thinking about his friend. He kept thinking about all that he lost. He didn’t know how he could deal with it. He knew that he couldn’t. He didn’t want to think about it anymore than this, and this was enough.
Robert could only nod. “They must have found a way to use her remains to make this drug of theirs. I knew she was gifted, but I didn’t know that it could also be in her body like that. I’ve never heard of this happening before. We Wanderers only carry the gifts through our souls. The body is nothing more than a vessel that carries it.”
Sharlia turned and faced him. “She was special. I do not know how they knew this, but that is no longer important. We need to find Kalima and tell him. We need his help.” She watched the window to her left, a large bay style window that spread out along the wall, almost the exact same length of the table, and through it, s
he could see the side of the other building at the corner of the glass. Even though it was now dusk, and the sun was disappearing from the sky, she could see one of her people suddenly move. They left their position and walked towards the front of the house. They had to be moving to the road. She didn’t like seeing this. They never left their positions unless they were forced to do it. Something had to have drawn his attention. It struck fear inside her hard. “Something is wrong.” She moved from the head of the table and the chair, and moved closer to the window. She looked out and to her right.
She saw nothing. Her guard had disappeared from her view.
Brandon and Sasha turned back to the doorway of the foyer behind them at the same time.
Brandon heard growls. He heard a sniffling screeching sound with it. He also heard voices, but didn’t know what they said. He didn’t know this place. He didn’t know these people, or how many there were, but he did know that he didn’t like what he heard. It just didn’t sound right.
“Someone is here.” Sasha heard it all too.
A soft, echoing popping sound flowed all around them and the house. Several of them followed the first.
Sharlia heard enough. She moved past Rochie and headed towards Sasha. She passed both of them and headed back to the foyer and to the front door. She opened it and looked out.
Sasha followed her to the door.
Brandon stayed at the doorway to the dining room, and Robert stood beside him.
Sasha looked out.
A woman stood at the opening to the wall. What looked like five people were on their knees around her, four on her left and one in front of her. Four other people all wearing what looked like a type of military clothing stood behind her too. They all carried weapons, what looked like rifles. They wore helmets and goggles. Those people didn’t worry her, but the woman did.
“Cassandra?” She knew her without having to think. She was a sister black wolf. She was also a child of Kalima. She was a kindred soul that helped them defeat Devish at the end times. Knowing who she was wasn’t enough. Why she was there was more important than that.
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