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

by Michael Lampman

  “I could say the same thing to you…for Rachel’s sake.” Jimmy looked up.

  “I made my decision and I kept to it. I didn’t have the choice.” Robert grew somewhat uncomfortable.

  Jimmy knew why. He felt the same way. He too made that very same choice. “I guess.”

  Robert sat forwards some. “Why are you here anyway Kalima? You were never one to help humans. You were never one to protect them either.”

  That made Jimmy’s face light up some. “Then I guess you didn’t really know him all that well after all did you. Besides, I’m not Kalima. I’m also Jimmy.”

  In a way, Robert understood that. “You’re right.” He looked to Brandon. “And who are you exactly?”

  Brandon looked to Jimmy and then back to Robert. He didn’t really understand the question and the look of bewilderment on his face proved it to everyone who saw it. “I’m Brandon.” He shrugged.

  “I don’t get that.” Robert stood up. “Why would Kalima, the most powerful and dreaded moonwalker that ever lived, a new nightwalker, and another black moonwalker be helping Rachel? Why would you be helping a human?”

  That made Jimmy look up again. Seeing Robert standing, he stood up too. “We’re her friends. We were all humans before we became this.” He felt a twinge of anger for suddenly being questioned about his intentions, and he thought he knew why. How dare this guy come out of the woodwork after all this time and question people he’d never met before. How dare he leave Rachel? Of course, that last part made his heart cringe some. After all, didn’t he do the same thing himself? Thinking that, he bowed his head again. It almost made him sit again too, but he didn’t. He just felt like doing it.

  Robert watched him stand. Seeing the look in his eyes made him suddenly regret what he said. He was in no place to make a judgment on anyone else and he knew it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it that way…or anyway for that matter.” He sat back down. “I’m just surprised to see all of you here. I didn’t expect it.”

  Watching him sit, Jimmy did too. “I can understand that.” He lifted his eyes back up. “Why did you say that anyway? Why wouldn’t he help a human?”

  Robert slapped his hands together in front of him. The sound seemingly bounced off the walls. “Let’s just say that he was never one to do such a thing. He preferred the solitude to anything, or anyone.”

  Jimmy could agree with that.

  “There’s so much going on here that I don’t understand lately. I shouldn’t be surprised with anything anymore.”

  Jimmy nodded. “There is. It’s obvious to me that you loved her. It’s also obvious to me that you have no idea what’s going on here too. And like it or not, we’re not about to go anywhere either.”

  “What is going on anyway?” Brandon now came in. He hoped to get some answers himself. All he knew was that some bat-like thing tried to kill him, and some vampires tried to kill Rachel, and bam—here he was, sitting in his parents’ living room with Jimmy, Rachel, Rachel’s dead brother, and Sasha roaming the woods. He had every right to feel confused by the world in general.

  Robert looked to him and then to Jimmy.

  Jimmy nodded, thankful to Brandon for asking the question. It’s about time someone did.

  Robert took a deep breath before he began. He wasn’t even sure if he should. They might ask the wrong questions. They might want to know too much that he wasn’t willing to tell them. But at the same time, Jimmy was right. They were there, and he needed help. He couldn’t do it alone, and last night proved that point to him more than ever. If it wasn’t for Kalima showing up, he would be dead, and Rachel would be gone forever. With himself concluded, he began, “Something is going on in the walker realm. There have been disappearances, messages being left in places, and several deaths. I’ve been watching something major going down, and I’ve been trying to figure out what that is.”

  “What do you mean about deaths, and people going missing?” He thought about the woman vampire he helped, and the reasons for finding her in the first place. He spoke what he knew. “Recently, I began seeing people showing up, looking like they were being killed by animals in the city. I knew it was walkers doing it from the start. They began coming back.” Jimmy dropped both hands to his lap and folded his finger together on top of it. Now that he was hearing something, he felt that he could relax. He just hoped it would help him by giving him answers that he needed to protect Rachel. It’s all he wanted, and nothing else mattered anymore.

  “They never left the city Jimmy.” Robert now rubbed his palms together. “And there not people going missing or turning up slaughtered, but walkers. Someone and I’m not sure who that is yet, has been taking out some of the clans. They’re taking out the good ones too.”

  “Clans?” Brandon found this somewhat fascinating, if just a tad bit confusing too. It, however, might just be him being the confused one and not them. They seemed to know what they were talking about, and being that way, he wanted to join in the group.

  “They are the twelve clans.” Robert looked at Jimmy. “They are what are left of the twelve walker covens.”

  “You mean that the people being found on the news are walkers not humans?” Jimmy took a deep breath, taking everything in. Thinking, the woman in the alley came up again. He could see here there, standing, a hint of a sparkle of knowing who he was, showing in her eyes. But there was more there than that. She also showed him fear. She showed him that she feared him. Now, it makes sense why she did.

  Robert nodded.

  “Before I heard about Rachel, I followed a group of wolves into an alley. They attacked a vampire there. I managed to stop them before they killed her.” Jimmy now sat forward some.

  Robert’s eyebrows rose up but he wasn’t very surprised. After everything he’s seen himself, he expected that much. “Who was it? Who was the one that was attacked?” He had to know more either way.

  Jimmy shook his head. “I have no idea. She wouldn’t tell me.”

  “What did she look like?”

  He thought some, trying to find the right words to describe her. He came up with something and went with it. “She was black, black hair, fine clothes.”

  “Sounds like Sharlia.” Robert smiled. The idea that no one got to her made him feel pleased some. She was too good to lose in the fight for what was left that was good in the world.

  “You know her too huh?” Jimmy wasn’t surprised. Why would he be?

  “Yes. She’s a good person.”

  “Who is she? Why were they trying to kill her?”

  “I wish I knew. She’s the head of one of the clans…one of the covens.”

  Jimmy nodded. Again, he couldn’t argue with what he heard, but it did give him more to ask. “These covens, what are they?”

  Robert came to attention. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?” It sounded a little strange the Kalima wouldn’t remember some of this. He was there. He lived it when all of this began. But then again, he had trouble with understanding why Kalima did what he did in the first place. He would come to that soon enough.

  Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t seem to remember much about him. Some things he does remember, but some things he doesn’t.” How do I say what this is? How do I put it together to explain it? “He seems to be hiding things. I don’t have any better way to explain it other than that.”

  “Why do you think he’s hiding things?”

  Again, he shook his head. “I’m not sure how to explain that. It’s a feeling inside me. It’s just what I think—what I feel only.”

  Robert did understand that, so he nodded. “Kalima was a very solitary person Jimmy. He was private. He kept a lot of things to himself.”

  “I’m getting that.” He nodded. “You were about to explain these covens?”

  Robert also nodded. “The covens are what are left of the twelve families. They are the original blood walker tribes.”

  “Blood walkers?” Brandon now came in.

  Jimmy began to f
eel a little perplexed with Brandon coming in like he was, but as he thought about it, it did make sense for him to do it. He knows nothing about the past. He’s like I was back when all of this started.

  “The blood walkers were the first of their kind…of your kind. Like all other species on this planet, they gave birth to their offspring. In the beginning, there were thousands of them. They formed into clans. They kept themselves into their families. They formed the twelve covens. When they went extinct, the twelve covens stayed together. Their offspring kept them intact through the generations up to today.”

  “If they could give birth, why did they go extinct?” Brandon took everything in. He accepted everything without question.

  “Their long lives brought them time…time to have children. Eventually…for whatever reason that no one really knows about, they just stopped having them. They just put it off and it became too late. To top it off and make matters worse, their numbers fell, and the females of their kind went first. No one knows anything more than that.”

  “They ran out of chicks?” Brandon bowed his head.

  Jimmy laughed.

  So did Robert as he nodded. “When that happened, a few of those that remained eventually began to notice that there was some of their main prey that would survive their bites. Humans could turn into what bit them. They used that small detail to refill their ranks. And thus, the covens began, and the families waned.”

  Jimmy sat back, finding all of this fascinating beyond words. “Is that when the wanderers were first noticed?” He thought back to what

  Sasha told him several months ago about the history she knew. Where her telling of that history seemed limited, he could see that Robert’s was not.

  “Wanderers?” Brandon continued.

  Robert gave him a quick smile. “Wanderers are humans that have great powers. Each is born different. Some carry the traits of their walker cousins. They have all of the gifts but none of their strengths.”

  Brandon nodded. He did see that with Gary, didn’t he? It explained the lightning. It explained the winds crashing out the wall of the barn. It also explained the wound he had in his leg. Now he knew what that all was. Now he understood it—somewhat anyway, but it was better.

  Robert nodded and looked back to Jimmy. “The wanderers came later. They came after the birth of the humans who were transformed into walkers did. The wanderers were their children.”

  That Jimmy didn’t understand. “What do you mean by that? I thought the wanderers came first,” he had to ask his confusion.

  Robert nodded. “The wanderers came from the walkers and humans as they mated. They gave birth to them. That’s why we wanderers have their gifts. We are in a way the offspring of the walkers themselves.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “In the beginning things were different. When one was made a walker, they came from humans, just like the way the two of you did. When that happens, it’s hard to let go of one’s own humanity. As time goes by, and all your loved ones die, you lose that connection to what you were. You lose your humanity. That’s what happened with them.”

  “So walkers can do it with humans?” Brandon flashed, in his own subtle way.

  Again, Jimmy laughed.

  Again, so did Robert. He also, again nodded. “In the beginning yes. That’s how the wanderers began. They were born from the unions of the species, and thus gained the walker’s gifts.”

  “So why bite if they can have kids?” Brandon continued.

  “Do you desire to have children with a cow, or when you were human that is?”

  Brandon shrugged. “Of course not.”

  “So why would you as a walker want to now?”

  With that said, he nodded. He knew how he felt for human women now. The whole food fetish quip he said made everything make sense.

  “Besides, why would anyone want children that became a threat to them? Why would you want your children to live when all they wished for was your death?

  Jimmy nodded. “That does explain a lot.”

  Robert nodded. “After their birth, and after noticing their gifts, that’s when the walkers began to use the wanderers to control their human prey. It also brought them to their down fall.”

  “The wanderers started the war?”

  Brandon turned to Jimmy as he heard him say it. “What war?” The word surprised him some. He didn’t even think of such a thing. Why would he?

  Jimmy looked at Robert hoping that he would explain it fully and gave him a subtle nod to do it.

  Robert didn’t disappoint him. “Some of us didn’t want to continue what we were doing. Through the generations, unlike our parents, we began to retain our humanity. We began to notice, within our human brethren, there was a light of something that we never saw before. They had a magnificent strength and intelligence within them. They could learn. They could be taught to survive. We took it upon ourselves to teach them. When that happened, after it did, well everything changed. They fought for their freedom. They fought for their very lives and their rights to live it.” He noticeably grew uncomfortable.

  Jimmy could hear his heart skip several beats as he continued.

  “We joined them. We fought with them. We taught them how to forge metals…to exploit the walker’s weaknesses of gold and silver. We won. Eventually, everything changed and the walkers nearly became extinct. But that’s when he came.”

  “Who?” Brandon again beat Jimmy to the punch. He sat forward on his chair. He looked like a little schoolboy who was hearing scary stories as he sat around a campfire. He couldn’t wait to hear more. He couldn’t contain his own excitement to hear the story grow as it neared its climax.

  Jimmy sat forward some as well.

  Robert bowed his eyes some as he continued. He had a look of pain on his face. The memory hurt him from the very beginning. “One day, many years ago, towards the end of the first war, a boy was found that showed an incredible gift inside him. In time, the walkers noticed that wanderers couldn’t survive their bites. Their offspring, the children of walker and human unions, wouldn’t survive the venom they all have. It was their greatest weapon against them. They used it to great advantage, until this boy came. He could withstand the bite. He survived an attack when he was very young, and healed from all of his wounds not long after it. He even healed from the bites that ravaged his small body. He also showed a strength that was nearly unimaginable to behold in anyone. Within him stood a light too powerful for the walkers to have in the world. He could have extinguished all of them, but instead, he turned into a beast that was so very similar to the original blood walkers that many thought that he was their second coming. As the beast, he could best all of those who stood before him. He was the one that turned the tide. He was the one that nearly turned the very world back to the darkness.” Robert paused and looked to Jimmy’s face.

  Instantly, Jimmy knew where this was going, and even with knowing it, he truly didn’t want to hear it. He did know that he would hear it, either way—like it or not.

  Robert could see the recognition flow through his face. He could see it bellow through his eyes. He instantly knew that he already knew what he was going to say. “The boy grew into the black wolf. His name was Kalima.”

  “Why did he become it? Was it because of the bites he got?” Jimmy searched inside his head. He looked for the eyes there and found them quiet. They were still there, but he just couldn’t see them. It’s like he’s closed his eyes. It’s almost like he’s trying not to listen to this. That thought clenched his chest. Why would he do that? Why won’t he talk to me about it?

  Robert shook his head softly. “He didn’t just become it Jimmy, but he chose it. He chose to be the black wolf.”

  “Why would he choose something like that? Why would anyone?” Jimmy tried to blink but couldn’t bring himself to do it. Again, he looked towards Kalima, and now, unknown to why he knew this himself, felt him even turn away from him. He’s regretful. He hates what he did, and why he di
d it. It’s the only thing that made any sense.

  “It’s a tragic story that only he can answer Jimmy. Only he knows why he did what he did.”

  Jimmy’s face went blank.

  “What happened after that?” Brandon looked to his friend and truly felt some amount of pity for him. He truly cared about how he would take what he heard.

  “As I said, the tides changed. With the black wolf, the walkers fought back. They nearly won too.”

  Brandon felt somewhat shocked. “Dude? Isn’t there anything you didn’t do?” He looked to Jimmy. After he said what he did, he suddenly regretted it. He went too far and he knew it too. “Sorry dude.”

  “Kalima did it, you moron.” Jimmy scoffed and looked back at Robert. “He’s not the same as he was back then. He’s changed.”

  “Obviously.” Robert nodded. “It’s now time you answer that question for me.” He sat forward some. “How did he change? How did this happen? How did he do what he obviously did?”

  Jimmy met his stare. “I’m not sure that I can answer that really.” He took a deep breath, still thinking. Hearing everything, an idea suddenly crossed his thoughts. “He was a wanderer wasn’t he?” He had to ask. He already felt that he knew the answer.

  Robert nodded simply. “He was the first wanderer to be able to take the bite. He was the first to live and become what he did.”

  “Then you already have your answer as to why I’m here with him. All wanderers possess a soul. He passed his soul into a man named Collins all those years ago in Ireland, and then Collins passed him onto me.” Jimmy swallowed low and ebbing. He took a deep and longing breath just after he did it.

  Robert nodded again. “Wanderers pass onto new bodies when those bodies become available Jimmy. They don’t pass them to someone who already has one.”

  Jimmy finally blinked. “I guess being that he’s a walker too helped.”

  Robert raised his eyebrows up with that one. Quite simply, he did agree with the assessment.

  Jimmy’s mind turned back to Rachel, who was still in the back room. Sasha left her and hour ago to head outside and walk—guard—the house. “Why are they after Rachel?”