A Werewolf's Saga Books 4, 5, & 6 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets Book 2)

by Michael Lampman

  A Werewolf’s Saga

  Books 4, 5, & 6

  The Wanderer Awakens

  Darkness Rises

  &

  The End Times

  Michael Lampman

  © 2016 by Michael Lampman

  All Rights Reserved

  Made in the U.S.A.

  Get caught up on the entire series with;

  A Werewolf’s Saga

  Changes

  The Pack

  Redemption

  The Wanderer Awakens

  Darkness Rises

  The End Times

  The Puppets and the Strings

  A Werewolf’s Saga, The Beginning

  The Dawn of Humans

  The Rising Son

  Changing Tides

  Coming Soon

  Reemergence

  Power and Pain

  Or go to www.AWerewolfsSaga.com to learn more.

  The

  Wanderer

  Awakens

  Michael Lampman

  © 2012-2016 Michael Lampman

  All Rights Reserved

  Made in the U.S.A.

  My Journal

  I haven’t see or talked with Rachel for a couple of weeks now. I have to admit it; I miss her more than I ever thought I would have when I first came back here. Leaving her was the hardest thing that I ever did. It was the hardest thing I had to do. Without her, I feel empty. I feel almost lost. I still feel her around me. I see her in my dreams. I see her in my every thought. Does she even know that I’m still alive? It can be so hard sometimes to justify what I did to her, leaving her like I did. I can only hope that she can forgive me for it. Hell—I hope I can forgive myself.

  Every so often, I catch myself on the phone about to call her, but hang up before I do it. Thank God, I catch myself every time. It’s good that I do. I have to stay away from her. I have to protect her. If I call her, they might find her. I just can’t do that. I can’t risk it, even though I want to hear her voice more than anything else. With all of the walkers out there, I can’t let them know about her. As long as she stays in the dark about where I am, I feel she’s safe. As long as I can keep doing it, and stop myself, I know that she will be. It’s a struggle every day, and one day, I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop myself. I am getting better at the fight though. I try to keep myself occupied with the city. I try to keep myself sane thinking about something—anything else. Lately, I’m finding that easier to do.

  Since coming back to New York, I moved back home. It’s strange that I think of this place like that, after all, it belonged to Collins, but that doesn’t seem to matter to me anymore. My memories of him have started to grow stronger. Sometimes, I feel almost like I can get lost with who I really am. I find myself—what’s a good word to use for this— maybe blended. Yes, I feel blended with him. I have to remind myself that he was someone else. He was someone important, but not me. I have to tell myself that he was his own soul. With his memories, I have to clarify them with my own. I’m starting to learn how to do it too. It takes me time. It takes having patience, but I am learning to do it better every day that goes by.

  The one I wish I knew more about is the one person that I can’t seem to remember—and that’s Kalima. To make matters worse, I want to remember him. I want to see his memories but for some reason I can’t do it. I don’t know why. I keep thinking back to when I was with Kenny. I can remember how he explained it as Kalima no longer being human, but more of the wolf. This rather makes sense to me. As the wolf, he relies on his instincts, and with them, he only feels and reacts to everything going on around him. He doesn’t think like me. Being only the wolf now, it means that Kalima can no longer tell me things as a human can—as Collins does, but only show me things in a way that only a wolf can truly understand them. Again, it makes total sense, even though I know it shouldn’t. I guess in time, that too I’ll learn better on how to do it. Again, I have to stay patient. I have to keep my faith. Patience and faith that I wish would come to me faster, sooner, rather than later.

  Kalima seems to know things about the walker world that Collins never did. I’ve learned that Collins separated himself from the walkers. In fact, I don’t think he ever really connected with them in the first place. I have no memories of him ever being involved with any of them, other than his pack, and so there’s nothing there to learn about them. This alone makes me worried. Since being back here, I’ve come to notice strange things happening around the city, and I know that has something to do with them. There are things that don’t seem—well—done by humans. Several unusual deaths have happened lately and it just looks like them doing it. I’ve seen it on the news. I’ve read it in the papers, and knowing this, it tells me that walkers have moved back into the city. If I’m right, and they have come back here, than only one person can help me figure out what to do about it, and that’s Kalima. Without finding a way to understand him better, I might not understand anything about them. This scares me, and it scares me a lot. It makes me unsure of what to do about it. Even with that said, I still have to do something. I have to find out what’s going on. I have to find out what they want.

  Thinking back to Michael, the Nightwalker vampire who tried to kill me up in the Adirondacks, tells me that they don’t seem to like me very much. He said something about fearing me. The fact that I loved a human makes me dangerous to them. They think I’m betraying them or something. I don’t know why, but I know that I have to find out what happened between us—Kalima and the walkers. I have to find out why they fear him, and in the end, me.

  Now, I’m going out every night. I walk the streets, looking for them. I know they’re here. I know they’re somewhere, walking the streets and hunting around me. I have to find them. I know that I have to, before they find me.

  1

  The blood was everywhere. It covered the walls with a deep splattering that made the white paint look almost pinkish red. The sun coming in through the only window of the room, opposite the wall, cast a shadow over the wall at the corner of the room, making the two bodies on the floor look like nothing but sacks. They almost looked like manikins. They looked like they were never alive in the first place.

  Walking into the room, he stepped around the blood the best he could. It felt hard to do. There was too much of it to miss all of it.

  “Wanderer, thank you for coming so quickly.” Detective William Carlisle stood over the body closest to the wall. He looked down, feeling that awkward uneasiness flowing through him with an endless, seamless pain. He didn’t feel real. He didn’t feel right.

  “Thank you for calling me.” He stopped at the feet of the one body nearest the door after he stepped inside the small room.

  “It’s getting harder doing this. People are starting to ask questions. I’m not sure how long I can keep them in the dark like this.” Carlisle had to keep breathing. The smell of death made it difficult to do it right.

  “I appreciate your patience Detective.”

  “So, what do you think?”

  “I think there’s something more going on here than what meets the eye.” The one named the Wanderer walked over to the body nearest him and looked down at it with wide eyes. The body lacked the one thing that would tell him who it was. The headless corpse lied on its side. He could see that she was a woman by seeing her breasts just under the shirt. Seeing them, it’s all he had.

  “You’re sure then that these are what you think they are?” Carlisle couldn’t tell for sure. He never could tell the difference between those like him and those that weren’t.


  “They are members of the Sharlia clan.” He bent down over what was left of the woman, and could see the pin on top of her left breast. The black colored metal seemed to sparkle in the sunlight coming in at her shoulders. The pin was shaped in the form of an inverted S. Only the Sharlia clan wore such a pin. All of the clans wore one unique to them and their families.

  Carlisle took a deep exaggerated breath. “Then it’s starting then. What you told me is coming is beginning?”

  The wanderer stood back straight. He turned to Carlisle and nodded. “It is. The walkers are coming back into the city. And now,” he swallowed low and shallow, “they’re taking out their own kind.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure. They’ve never done something like this before.” He bowed his head.

  “Maybe this will help you find out something.” Carlisle took his time stepping around the headless corpse in front of him, did the same thing with the woman, and went to the wall with the door. He put his hands on his hips when he finally made it. “I found this, and well, of course, I thought of you.” He looked to the wall.

  He turned and looked himself.

  On the wall, just to the right of the open door, letters were scratched into the sheetrock and it looked like it was done with blood. The letters were easy to read in the sentence they formed. “The Wanderer will awaken.”

  “What does it mean? Why will you awaken?” Carlisle knew only what the wanderer told him. As far as he was concerned about it, he wanted to know more himself, but at the same time, he didn’t. This was all getting to be too much. This was becoming weird, even for everything he’s seen over the past few months.

  The Wanderer shook his head. He bowed it after he did it. Questions mixed in him with a sense of dread, and both raced through him hard and fast. “Something’s coming, and it isn’t good Will. They’re coming back home.” He looked back up.

  Carlisle felt him tense up. He knew it wasn’t good. He felt it himself. “We need to tell others. They have to know what’s going on.”

  “No.” The Wanderer turned back to him. “We have to continue this. If I can find out how to stop this, whatever this is, I will.” He turned back to the door, and headed back out the way they came into this small room. He left Carlisle alone and stepped out into the hallway of this small motel.

  They’re coming. They’re fighting amongst each other. What does it mean? Have they found the one? Have they found the Wanderer again? The questions seemed far too great to gather in his thoughts all at once. A small headache forming at the front of his head seemed to overflow with the questions.

  He turned right, walked down the hallway, and came to the stairs that led down to the first floor just beneath him.

  They’re going after him. They might try to find him again. He just couldn’t be sure. It had been years since they tried to find where he was. Years that seemed long and almost forgetful in their passing of time. It doesn’t mean that they won’t try. I’m going to have to go to her. I’m going to have to wait. They can’t find her. They can’t know.

  He headed for the stairs and moved down them quickly. He left the building just as fast.

  Carlisle stood there motionless. He felt lost, more than ever. He’s known about these—these monsters—for some time now, ever since the man called the wanderer came to him and told him the truth. At first, he thought it all was nothing but total shit. A lie told to him by a crazy person, but now, seeing what they can do and are doing, he wished long and hard that he were the one that was crazy. Somehow, it would make him feel better if he was. If the wanderer was right, things in his city were about to get a hell of a lot worse. He feared that, who wouldn’t. He just didn’t know what to do about it.

  2

  Where in the hell is that coming from? Jimmy could smell it on the air. It smelled stale. It smelled somewhat odd. It even smelled different from what he was used to smelling. Most wolves carried the smell of a strong must, but this time it seemed different. It still smelled musty, but there seemed to be more to it. It felt hidden. It felt—almost human. It had the hint of sweat mixed in with the must. The odor seemed to linger. It tasted so strong. I’ve never smelled a wolf like this before. This one is different. This one smells bad.

  Keeping the scent ahead of him, he moved down the sidewalk with a strong and cautious stride in his steps. He had to keep calm. He had to stay collected. Not knowing what he was following, he had to stay ready for anything.

  Up ahead, three men and one woman stepped out of what looked like a bar just down the street. He saw them in time to be able to duck out of sight, finding an indent in the building next to the bar, and there he hid. There he watched them step to the sidewalk. With the moonlight overhead, their auras flared around them. He could see them clearly. Each of them looked almost like a brown color, but each of them still looked dim.

  They don’t look right. They look wrong somehow. They look too human to be wolves. He knew that humans always carried a yellowish tint to their auras. It made them unique from the walkers—from those like him. Every wolf he’d ever seen before had a tan color to them, but these four looked almost brown. To him, they looked almost dirty. I wonder who these things are. Are they walkers? Are they something different?

  Seeing them turn towards an alleyway, just up ahead on his left, he knew instantly that he had to follow them to find out. Watching them, and how they carried themselves, he also noticed something else that seemed very different about them. They acted almost cocky. They acted boastful. They acted more like humans, than the others did.

  He moved, heading along the side of the building, keeping it to his left. He kept his hand running along its brick surface, keeping it there as he moved. Walking down the sidewalk, he stayed back some. When they reached the alleyway just between two large, tall buildings, he stopped. He watched the four as they disappeared down the alley. There, he watched and turned. He kept his back to the wall and the corner of the building, and watched them move. He couldn’t let them see him. He couldn’t risk what would happen if they did.

  Up ahead, he saw them move deeper into the shadows until they vanished completely from where he could see them. With the moonlight blocked by the buildings on his left and right, their auras vanished with them. Being that way, he knew he had no other choice but to follow them into the alleyway.

  I have to keep on them. I have to follow them. I have to see where they go.

  Decided, he crept into the alley, but kept his back to the wall. He knew if he could see them, they could see him and it only added to his sense of fear. So, he had to stay back. He had to stay cautious.

  The alley looked beyond dark. It casted shadows everywhere. He couldn’t see a damn thing. He had to stay focused. He had to keep his senses alive and alert.

  Up ahead, he could hear footsteps continue moving forward, splashing gently onto the pavement as they obviously moved away from him. Hearing them, he took a deep breath. The smell of must came back strongly. A hint of decay was now also there, riding on the soft air around the must. The sounds of walking then stopped. He could hear them turn, just before they grew stronger again. The sharp sound of a woman screaming came after that.

  What the hell?

  He moved fast. He picked up his stride. He ran towards the scream. The sounds of a scuffling, almost what sounded like a fight or a struggle, came next.

  When he came to the sounds, he stopped. The lone woman of the group that he followed came out into the little light around the alleyway, standing to the wall just on his left. She reeked of must and staleness. Her long blonde hair covered her face. She looked disheveled, almost like she was just in a fight. Her clothes looked somewhat tattered. Her blue jeans carried a streak of dirt around her hips.

  That explains the sounds.

  In front of her, another woman was also there, lying on her back against the wall. Her curly shoulder length black hair was matted over her face somewhat, and she had a long streak of blood that flowed down the side of her br
ownish face, looking like it came from her right eye. She also looked scared. She looked terrified at best.

  The woman standing over her turned ever so slowly towards him when he came out into the light just behind her.

  Jimmy, smelling, feeling, watching everything, held his breaths. “What the hell is going on here?” He finally breathed.

  “This doesn’t concern you. Leave now, or die.” The woman, her smell came stronger yet, turned and smiled. The must she carried seemed strong—almost pungent. The smell of nothing but rotting meat on her breaths seemed strong still, and with it, he now knew that she had to be a wolf. She may have been different somehow from what he was, but he could tell that she was one, now more than ever.

  “I don’t think so.” He shook his head proving his point. “I’m not going to just stand here and let you do this.”

  Behind him, the sounds of a raspy hollowness came on the air. The heavy smell of must came in with it.

  With it, he forced himself to hold his breaths some. Their smell was nearly downright gagging, and it took everything he had not to do just that.

  He turned and blinked towards the sounds—towards the stench.

  In his haste to get there, he had completely forgotten about the others that he followed with the woman with the long straggly hair. Now, hearing the sounds—those deep raspy growls—and with the scent of even more must on the air, he wished he hadn’t ran there without thinking. He now knew that he must have just run into a hunt. He ran straight into a pack’s hunt for food.

  He looked to the shadows. He looked straight ahead, expecting that at any moment, a large black wolf was about to come out of the dark. When he saw something moving towards his thighs, he found himself even more shocked than awed.