The Blood Talisman

by Kim Culpepper

  “I can find Amalia by smell.”

  “Of course you can, you’re a wolf. That’s what I was saying, had you been listening.”

  “I’m sorry Selene, but Amalia is missing and I’m in some obvious deep shit that I really don’t care to be in. Every time I get angry, I change and I’m pretty angry at everything and everyone right now. I need to find my wife.”

  “Of course.” She walked over to sit on the floor next to Alex. “You’re gonna want to change and clean yourself up first, though. You look a mess.”

  Alex looked down at his bare feet and the green scrubs that looked like they were barely hanging on to his lower body. They were covered in dirt, mud, and grass. He turned his hands back and forth to look at the red stains that remained from the deer he had reluctantly consumed. The red stains continued up over his pectorals and down to his abdominals. He could not even imagine what his scraggly face looked like.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  “Here, let me help you to the bathroom and get you cleaned up and then we can go from there. Okay?”

  He looked at her questioningly.

  “I mean, I will help if you want, but you can shower alone.” She chuckled and her face turned beet red.

  “I think I’m good now. Just really tired. A shower’s a great idea. Anything near normal will definitely help.”

  Alex jumped up and headed into the bathroom down the hall in his house, past the large bedroom off to the left. He paused a moment looking at the four poster bed that he and Amalia shared. He began to think of all of the fun and sometimes the wild times they’d had together in that very bedroom. Those warm thoughts followed him into the shower and helped him to relax enough to get through the next few hours.

  Selene remained in the living room, waiting. She walked around, tidying up the place and putting things somewhat back to normal. Some books were nearly hanging off a shelf. She straightened them and noticed there was a yearbook amongst the girly magazines and cookbooks. She pulled it out and began to thumb through the pages. She passed a picture of herself, with black hair and dark eye shadow. Memories started to flood back through her mind of the high school sweethearts. Alex and Amalia were inseparable even then. She had admired them from afar when they were young and she still admired them now, although from closer up. They had created a perfect little life together. A life that she longed to have.

  She slammed the book shut and placed it angrily back up onto the shelf. She’d hated who she was then. She’d longed to live a life with Alex at one time, but she could not be happier for him and Amalia now.

  Her cell phone in her back jean pocket began to ring and she answered it quickly.

  “Dad?” she answered.

  “Did you find him?” a male voice asked.

  “Yes, his wife’s been kidnapped. I’ve enlisted myself into helping him. Do you want me to tell him that he is the descendant?”

  “Not yet. The timing must be right. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Yes sir,” Selene said as she clicked the phone off.

  The water in the shower had stopped running and a door opened from the bathroom. A heap of steam billowed out followed by Alex, wrapped only in a towel. He trotted into the adjacent bedroom, completely ignoring Selene in the living room.

  Selene sighed and inched a few curious steps closer to the hall. She peeked around a corner so she could see him as he dressed in the next room. She had missed the good bits; his pants were already on. They were tight fitting, dark blue jeans. He pulled a white tee over his bare chest and then another dark green tee over that. He turned to notice Selene staring at him from the doorway. He began to lace up the dark brown boots that he’d grabbed from his closet.

  “See anything you like, Selene?” Alex asked, flirtatiously. He smiled a smile that she couldn’t see.

  “Oh! I’m so sorry,” she retreated from the doorway. Her back was against the hallway wall and her face was once again beet red. “I didn’t realize you saw me peeking.”

  Alex came out of the room and grabbed her by the shoulders and said, “I was only kidding. If you’re going to help me, then you have to get my humor. I need some laughter in my life right now. I have to not think about everything and keep the wolf at bay. I think my anger feeds it.”

  “Eventually you will learn to control it and turn when you want to, but you’re right, any negative emotion that you feel will make you turn for the time being.”

  “How do you know so much about this? Is this a secret life we never knew about?” Alex pushed her on the shoulder and she smiled at him.

  “More like a life I am ashamed to be a part of. Never let you guys know about all this crazy stuff because I have tried to keep it out of my life. You will find how much fighting to be normal will consume your daily thoughts.”

  “You’re a woman of many surprises Selene,” he said as he walked away.

  Alex walked back into the bathroom and picked up Amalia’s hairbrush from the sink countertop and smelled the bristles. The memory of her flooded like a white light into his mind. She was brushing her hair in front of the mirror. A phone began to ring in the background and she went to answer it.

  The memory ended and Alex turned to smell the air. Selene was watching him, again from the doorway. Alex pushed her gently to the side and followed Amalia’s smell into the kitchen, where her blood lay still pooled in the center of the floor. He stared at it for a few seconds and the painful thoughts of what happened there to her fed anger into his mind but he pushed it back to focus on finding her.

  He noticed there were drops leading towards the door to the garage. He opened the door and looked down to find small droplets of her blood on the cemented floor in the garage. There was also a mustard yellow shirt, with some of her blood on it, lying next to where his truck would have been. He walked over and picked it up and lifted it to his nose.

  The brightly lit vision invaded his mind again. This time the strange man who had bitten her was now holding her in his arms and wiping the blood up off of her neck.

  “You fucking dumbass! Ram’s gonna kill you,” John Fortner said from behind him.

  “Shut up, I know what I’m doing, you idiot,” the man replied.

  “Just get her in the truck and wrap that wound up. We have to get her back to the Administration in Blearney.”

  The vision ended. Alex dropped the shirt and stared at Amalia’s car. He glanced back at Selene, who was now looking at him in wonder.

  “Are you okay, Alex?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I know where they have taken her. I should have just stayed there. This is all my fault.”

  “You can’t possibly mean that.” Selene rubbed his shoulder, comforting him.

  “Yeah, actually I can. I escaped from some people in Blearney, Texas, and they came for her here to get me to go back there. They knew I would come here to see her. I put her in danger.”

  “Well, let’s give them what they want,” she said. Alex looked at her quizzically. “I have some friends with the same, uh… problem that you have.”

  He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to the wall in the garage. He was inches from her face and all she was wishing for was a kiss.

  “You know other wolves?” he asked.

  She was staring into his beautiful green eyes for hope but found only questions that would lead him to his wife.

  “Yes. Quite a few actually.”

  “You have to take me there. These people won’t give her back willingly and they sure won’t let me leave again.”

  “I will do anything you want,” she said.

  She was raping his face with her eyes and it began to make him nervous.

  He stepped back from her and looked away uneasily. “I’m sorry Selene, but I didn’t mean to send the wrong message. You know how much Amalia means to me.”

  There was a long silence as she watched him squirm. She admired his gentleness with the rejection and it only made her want him more.

  “It’s o
kay, Alex. I’ve wanted you for a long while. You’re a good looking guy and I understand what it’s like to be in love. Love is all that encompasses your thoughts, but it still…” She shook her head, looking for the right words. Finally she said, “You got a key to that car over there? Let’s hit the road.”

  “Sure.” He grabbed a key hanging off the wall just inside the garage door. He glanced at the pool of blood once more and thought, “I’m coming for you baby.”

  Chapter 9

  Commander John Fortner had been driving the unmarked eighteen-wheeler all day. His eyes were weary and his patience low. Ember Strix had been sunbathing in the passenger seat and running her obnoxious mouth non-stop. The assets that were sent to help were tied up in the back of the tractor trailer. Ram was paranoid that they would escape but John thought this was a little extreme, considering that he had their metaphorical hearts in a jar. Threatening to drain someone they loved of every drop of blood within them tended to make even the strongest of souls submit.

  John slowed the big rig and pulled into a gas station next to a diesel pump. The truck was running out of gas and John needed a break from Ember, even if only for a few moments.

  An obnoxious pop tune began to stream out of Ember’s shirt. She pulled the little pink flip phone from her cleavage and answered excitedly, “Hey, babe!”

  “Let me speak to John,” the cavernous voice of Ram answered.

  Ember rolled her pretentious eyes at the phone and handed it over to John. He took a deep breath and put the pretty, pink phone up to his ear.

  “This is John.”

  “We’ve gotten word that he is on the move to come back here. I need you to stage a situation that will set him up to feed. I want to test his humanity. That will tell me a lot about him before he gets here.”

  “Yes, sir. Anything you say, sir.”

  Ember stared at John in anticipation as he listened and gave the occasional “uh-huh” and “yes sir” to Ram. He finally clicked the phone shut and handed it back over to Ember. Her French manicured fingernails scraped John’s hand and it was all he could take to not pummel her.

  Ember smiled her ‘I have more power than you’ smile. She looked outside towards the gas station that they had pulled up at and noticed a black and red striped Dodge Charger idling by the gas pumps. There was a redheaded woman pumping gas into the revving hot rod. Her long hair whipped around her face in sync with the wind. Ember’s disease began to growl within her. She glanced over to see a dark-haired man in the driver’s seat. He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear shifter. He was watching the woman with as much hunger for her as Ember had. He wanted her, but in a different way. Ember could smell the pheromones from where she was.

  John had filled the tank and paid. He plopped back into the truck. He began to put it into gear but Ember’s hand gripped his tightly, stopping it from moving. He attempted to move her hand off of his but she beat him to the punch. She looked at him. The bloodlust filled her eyes with desire.

  “We are not moving yet. I need… well, you can guess,” she said with a smile.

  “Ember, we have to stay on track. You can’t go on a feeding spree and leave tracks. Ram said…”

  “I can always just feed on you,” she interrupted.

  “I… uh…”

  “That’s what I thought. I’ll be back.”

  She exited the truck and John watched her as she walked over to the redhead and pushed her nose into a flurry of the girl’s hair. The woman paused from pumping gas and the man in the driver’s seat became alarmed. He stepped out of the car and hurried over to Ember and the redhead.

  “Who the fuck are you? Get away from my girlfriend!” the man yelled.

  Ember pushed the redhead’s hair back off of her neck and began to drink from her. The man rushed her but Ember threw him back onto the hood of the car. The redhead’s body dropped to the ground and her blood was dripping from Ember’s chin. She smiled at the man but he ran from her to get back into his car. He put it into drive but Ember was standing in front of it. He revved the engine and its tires began to squeal on the pavement. Ember punched the hood, putting her hand straight into the engine. She pulled up what looked like the carburetor and it went dead. She walked around to the driver and pulled him out through the open window.

  He screamed like a girl as he attempted to wriggle out of her hands, but she quickly laid him onto the hood of the car and began to feed on him. His screams became distant as his life slowly drifted away. She pulled away from his body and he slid off of the car onto the ground below.

  She walked back, smiling at John. She waved at him and he nervously smiled. She stepped back into the truck and slammed the door, not realizing that she was still in strong mode. The window cracked with the force and John immediately became frustrated with her again.

  “That was badass how I stopped the car, huh?” she asked John.

  “There are some towels and things in the back cab. You can clean up back there,” he replied.

  She glanced at the blood that ran down over her shirt and down to her pants. Then she noticed her hand. Her knuckles were scraped up and her own blood dripped from the deep gashes on her hand.

  “Fuck! I broke a damned nail.”

  John rolled his eyes and put the truck into gear. They headed towards Blearney, leaving their mess behind for someone else to deal with. John was tired of her and definitely didn’t want to clean up after her anymore. She wasn’t pushing him to so he wasn’t offering.

  She was back up into the front seat quicker than John would have liked her to be. She began running that obnoxious little mouth again. This time bragging about the mess she made at the gas station.

  “You know you’re in trouble, right?” she pointed out.

  “Ram’s gonna be more pissed that you did it in broad daylight. He won’t even think about me not cleaning up your mess.”

  “You keep thinking that, sweetie.” She patted him on the shoulder. “How do you think those sweaty dogs in the trailer back there are doing?”

  “I don’t get paid to think.”

  “True, but you are getting paid to amuse me, so you’d better do so or at the next truck stop you will be the one left dying on the ground.”

  “They’re fine,” he answered, through gritted teeth.

  She yawned and said, “I always get sleepy after a big meal. Wake me up when we reach our destination.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said, once again through gritted teeth.

  Chapter 10

  Alex looked over at the beautiful woman accompanying him on his journey to find Amalia. Her long hair was flowing in the wind as she gazed out of the passenger side window. She watched as every tree and area of flat land passed her by. Taking moments to sigh in contentment, she constantly glanced over at Alex as he drove with haste back to Texas. His weary face told his story. Everything he had been through recently wore on him like a cheap hat. He was too handsome to be this gruff looking. She reached over and rubbed the stubble on his face.

  “Did you forget to shave when you took your shower?” she asked.

  “Didn’t think about it,” he shrugged as he scooted closer to the driver’s side door.

  He leaned against the window and she placed her hand back into her lap. She stared down, embarrassed. She couldn’t quit touching him, or wanting to touch him. She knew it made him nervous but she kept pushing.

  “We need to make a stop at the next station,” Alex told her.

  “Okay,” she said, still looking down at her hands. She was twisting them back and forth nervously. She hated making him feel uncomfortable but couldn’t resist. She glared back out towards the passing trees and gave one more sigh of disgust at herself.

  Alex slowed the car and veered into a gas station that had one pump taped off. A black and red car stood at it. There were blood stains around a couple of bodies where detectives and a few sheriff’s deputies were walking around the car. They were talking amongst themselves.
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  Alex pulled his car up at the next pump over. He got out of the car, watching them all carefully. He didn’t want to attract any attention but the blood in the air was overwhelming.

  Alex took a deep breath and the smell took him away to the scene. He leaned back against the Toyota as he pumped gas and watched it all unfold as the visions appeared in his mind. He watched the redhead get drained and the blonde’s punch to the car. The blood from her fist was still present on the hood. He opened his eyes and noticed one of the deputies looking strangely at him. The deputy casually excused himself from the scene and walked over to Alex.

  “You okay, boy?” the deputy asked.

  “Yes sir. Just sleepy is all.”

  The deputy leaned in closer to Alex and whispered into his ear, “We can sense our own kind, you know.”

  Alex looked shocked at him. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “You see what happen here? That diseased little bitch killed those people. I can’t tell them that but…”

  He stopped as the other Toyota’s passenger door slammed shut.

  “Marcus Richman?” Selene said aloud.

  “Selene! I haven’t seen you in ages. How’s the family?”

  Marcus walked around the car to hug her. He was short and round. He was what you would expect from a typical donut-eating deputy sheriff.

  “Dad’s great, but you know Mom died years ago,” she answered.

  “What are you doing around these parts?”

  “Helping a friend.”

  “Well, any friend of Selene’s is a friend of mine. If ya’ll need any help, just lemme know.”

  “I think we got it under control.”

  Alex got back into the car and slammed the door, hoping Selene would notice his urgency.

  “Think you’d better go. He seems a bit eager,” Marcus smiled.

  “Yea, it was good seeing you, Marcus. May take you up on the help soon.” She winked.

  Selene got into the car and shut the door. Marcus leaned down to her and Alex. “Anything you need, Selene. Ya’ll drive safely.”