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

by Michael Lampman

  Robert looked to the four of them as tears swelled up in both of his eyes. Seeing the look on his sister’s face, he began to feel like everything was going wrong. Could she handle the truth? Could Jimmy understand everything? So much was now rolling inside his head that he wasn’t sure of where to start. Being out there, in the middle of the woods, he knew this wasn’t the place to say anything. Besides, going some other place, getting there, would help him find the words to what he needed to say.

  Jimmy felt his heart begin to beat normally again. He could see the tears glisten in his eyes. Whatever he knows, I’m not going to want to hear it. He looked from Robert and noticed Ross stepping towards the trunk. He looked dazed and confused. He looked at Robert and saw the blood on his head. He looked back and could easily see the scratches and blood in swatches all over Sasha’s naked body. He looked back to the trees around them. “We have to get someplace more secure than this.” He looked back to Robert. “Then you’re going to tell us everything.”

  Robert nodded. “This place is no longer safe.” He turned back to Ross. “Take us to this place you told us about.”

  Ross nodded. He felt much better—a little winded still—but better than before.

  Jimmy took a deep breath.

  The five of them headed off. They reached the town rather quickly. It was nearly morning, when they arrived to that large set of buildings, just south of town.

  32

  After hearing what she did, and feeling the confusion surrounding it, Sharlia did what she always did when pacing wasn’t enough. She went to her private chapel, kneeled in front of the crest of her long historic family and bowed her head to it. She closed her eyes and sought the answers. She looked for the help to find them. But nothing came. She felt barren. She felt more lost than ever.

  A knocking coming from the door to the room, made her open her eyes back to the world she found herself in. “Yes?” She didn’t move. She stayed on her knees on the small stool in front of the small shrine dedicated to all of those of her family that died in all of the years past.

  James, her beloved young one, opened the door and walked in behind her. Unlike the last time he came to tell her something, this time, he kept his head up. “My lady?” He stopped to her right side.

  “My child?” She folded her hands in front of her face. She used the shrine’s flat surface to hold her arms up with her elbows on top of it. The long sleeved gown she wore, she kept away from the two large candles burning on the shrine, by holding her hands close to her chin.

  “I have received word that the Elders will arrive in two days.” He crossed his arms in front of him, holding his hands together at his waist. He always felt the solitude of her shrine. He always felt its power. He always paid it back with his utmost respect.

  “That is good my child. We must be ready to host them.” She never turned. She kept her eyes fixed on the flames flanking on both side of her head.

  “I have also heard some other news, my Lady. It appears that the wanderer has gone up north. The black wolf also has.”

  Hearing him, she now turned. “Why?”

  “Rumor has it that Rochie’s sister has been found.”

  “What?” She now turned from her stool. She even stood up. She felt prodded, almost shocked to do it. “She’s been found?” So much more is going on, now she knew it was all true.

  “The same rumor says that Vincent Gorhan is also moving to find her.” He kept his eyes bright. Unlike before, he had no idea if what he was saying was good news or bad. Not knowing what was happening helped him with it.

  “He is looking for him then. He may already have found him.” She passed him, and headed towards the door. She stopped right in front of it. “We must stop him. We must inform the elders. We must find the wanderer and the black wolf.”

  Her words made him blink. “How my lady?”

  She finally turned and looked him in the face. “I need you to go up north. I need you to find them. I need you to bring the wanderer back here to the elders. It’s the only way we are going to show them the truth of what’s happening here.” She reached out with her left hand and took him gently under his chin. “You must not fail me my child. You must accomplish this.”

  He stood taller hearing her. He stood prouder too. “I will do anything for you my lady. I will not fail you.”

  She gave him a nod and smile.

  He turned, walked past her, and headed back out of her little chapel. He closed the door when he left.

  The days are growing shorter. The time is running out. She moved back to her small shrine. She retook the stool in front of it. She kneeled down and refolded her hands. She looked to the candles and between them to the giant side leaning letter S on the wall. She closed her eyes to it, and let her mind go blank. If she ever needed answers, this was the time. This now became an endless need that she needed help to quench.

  33

  Arthur and Samantha made it back their motel just before the sun came up. Only four others made it back with them. For Arthur, seeing how few of them returned, he felt almost ashamed. Too many were killed. Too many were hurt. They risked too much, as far as he could tell about it. It all seemed hopeless. It all seemed wrong.

  Danielle sat with Felicia on the second bed, trying to help her with the heavy scrapes along the side of her face and neck. Her broken leg and arm looked twisted. She looked like a mess. She was in real pain.

  Samantha took the time to lick her wounds, literally, trying to clean her wrist of the soreness that wouldn’t let up within it with heavy doses of her elongated tongue.

  Gabrielle, one of the surviving wolves, cried in the corner of the single room for her lost friends that would not return.

  Seeing all of them, Arthur felt tears in his heart.

  Finished some with looking over Felicia, Danielle looked up to him standing at the foot of the first bed. “What do we do now? With the black wolf and the others we’ll never be able to take her.” She spoke the obvious. She felt the same way that Arthur felt, but didn’t know it. She hated the pain their attack caused. She despised their failure while taking such loses with trying to do it.

  “We wait.” Arthur nodded. He didn’t know what else to say or do. He felt completely dejected beyond all possible words. He turned, hearing the door opening to his left, feeling a twinge of hope that another one of them had finally made it back, but that feeling faded when he watched Vincent step inside the room. “My Lord?” He met him at the door.

  The others in the room looked up to him surprised to see him even there.

  Vincent closed the door behind him. He met Arthur at the side of the bed. He looked past him to all of the others, and seeing them all battered and bruised, he did feel for them. But, he knew that it was a necessary pain. “My dear friends.” He turned to Arthur first. “You have found the woman?” He met his eyes.

  Arthur saw nothing in his eyes. He lacked feelings. He lacked emotions. He, like all the others, truly lacked a soul. “We have. We tried to take her last night as you directed, but we failed. The black wolf has allies, my lord. They were stronger than all of us combined.” He spilled every thought he had, and yet it still felt like not enough. He lacked what truly happened with his telling of the story. He felt weaker than ever.

  “You have done well my friends. Your sacrifice will not be in vain. All things are in motion.” Vincent saw Samantha stand up just behind Arthur. “We now have a plan. We now have a place. We will take her tonight.” He smiled to her with truly genuine eyes. He loved her so much more than he did the others. He always did.

  Arthur shook his head. “They killed half of us my lord. We lack the strength to try again so soon.” He truly couldn’t believe what he heard. He couldn’t believe the pain erupting in his very heart. He couldn’t ask them to do it again.

  “I know my brother. I know.” Vincent turned quickly. He left the room the same way, and said nothing else.

  Arthur watched the door close in front of him, and felt his m
ind explode with questions. He felt quite frankly lost for words. Hell, they all were.

  All they could do was go back to doing what they were before he came in. They went back to tending their wounds. They went back to the pain they all felt.

  34

  The building looked quiet. The area around it felt still. Like Mister Ross told them, it was on the south end of the downtown district in an old rundown part of town. The building itself looked like an old warehouse. It had three floors. It had very few windows to see inside it. In some respects, he described it perfectly.

  The room he took them to inside the warehouse felt very lonely. It was off a long hallway from the front door. The room had only one window at the back of the room. With the one window, the lack of light made the place look somewhat dank. It also made it feel like solitude in itself. It made it feel subdued.

  Once inside and the door closed and bolted from inside with a deadbolt over the knob, Rachel set about the task of helping her brother with the gash on his forehead.

  Brandon helped Sasha with the several cuts on her back and arms.

  Jimmy didn’t worry about his own wounds. They would heal with him. As for what was strongest on his mind, he went to the next major task at hand first. “All right, now that were alone and out from the open, it’s time to spill the beans Bob. It’s time to tell us what is really going on here.” He got right to the point. They were out of excuses. They were also running out of time.

  Robert lifted his head up after letting Rachel examine the wound to his scalp. “Please. Don’t make me.” Now that he had the chance to think, he felt more sure than ever that he wanted none of what he was going to say. He couldn’t live with it again. He wouldn’t feel that hurt. He didn’t want the pain back.

  “I think you owe us something.” Brandon put down Sasha’s left arm back to her side. The spot she said hurt some on her ribs already started healing. It seemed pointless to do anything with it.

  Tears started rolling down Robert’s left cheek. “You don’t want to know this.” He took both of Rachel’s hands into his. He held them between the two of them. “I can’t have that way back again.”

  Rachel saw the tears easily. She saw the look of dread on his face. She didn’t know what to think and now felt sure that as for herself, she didn’t want to know anything. But as for Jimmy and the others, well Brandon was right. They had the right to know the truth of whatever it was that hurt her brother so.

  “Go on.” She gave him a smile. She pulled her hands from his, and stepped to his side. As for his head, it looked fine. It was nothing more than a small cut that stopped bleeding a while ago.

  Robert took a deep breath. He bowed his head down, and stared at his own feet as he began. “You are right. She is a wanderer.” He blinked several times, trying to get the tears from his eyes. It helped some, but with his words coming, and the memory they gave him, it brought too much pain for them to stop completely. He knew it wouldn’t work.

  Rachel bowed her head too. She had to prepare herself for whatever was about to come, if she could.

  “How come she doesn’t remember anything?” Sasha looked from Brandon, gave him a smile first, and then turned to the others.

  Robert took another deep—very deep breath. “She’s been blocked. It’s a strong one too.”

  “Blocked?” Jimmy crossed his arms over his chest. He and Sasha went back for their clothes at the cabin after the fight, so now he felt thankful that he was again wearing clothes. It made him happy to feel somewhat human again.

  “It’s something like a spell. Being blocked will keep her from remembering her past. It keeps her powers contained too.”

  Rachel took his hand into hers and squeezed him gently. “I have powers?” She scoffed some after she did it. She found it somewhat ridiculous to a point of contention. She never thought of herself like that. She never thought of anything like it before. Why would she?

  Robert looked her in the eyes. He nodded his answer. “You have what I have. You can do everything I can do.” He turned to the others, but kept his eyes on Jimmy. “Twins are a rare thing in the wanderer world. They share everything. They are unique.” He bowed his head again. “We are unique.”

  “You’re both twins?” Brandon took Sasha’s left hand into his. Her body heat flew through his lack of which like flames from a campfire. He loved the feeling. It felt like her love for him warming his heart.

  “Yes.”

  Rachel looked to Jimmy quickly and then bowed her own head. She found none of this to be much of a surprise yet. She already guessed all of this. But more was coming, she could tell that much.

  “What about this block thing? How does that work?” Jimmy thought about this one. Is that what happened to Kalima I wonder? The idea seemed to make sense. He hoped it was something that simple, but at the same time, in some strange way, he didn’t think it would be. Nothing was simple, least of all when it came to him.

  “Like I said, it’s something like a spell. All wanderers can do it— if they know how to anyway.”

  “Who did that to her? Was it you?”

  Robert shook his head. “I didn’t, no.”

  Jimmy kept on this. He wanted as much as he could get. “Then who did it?”

  Robert knew hard questions were going to come, and quite frankly, he wanted none of them, but with Jimmy wanting to concentrate on something like this, he was willing to stick with it. His answers to it were far simpler than all the rest of what he had to tell. “I don’t know who did it. I truly don’t know. I wasn’t there.”

  Jimmy felt his heart beat normally as he answered him. It told him that he was telling the truth. Damn. I was hoping that he knew. It might help me understand myself. “So why would they block her? Whoever did it?”

  Robert shrugged. “They didn’t want her to know the truth. The truth to what happened, the truth about everything else.” He grew uncomfortable. He had to swallow several times as he answered the question. He was now deep into what he didn’t want to say, and this was only the beginning of all of it, and he knew it.

  “What did happen?” Jimmy took a deep breath. The entire room went even quieter than it already was. The attention of everyone was at its height. The anticipation almost screamed in that silence.

  Robert bowed his head.

  Rachel squeezed his hand tighter.

  Robert thought about this a thousand times over his many long years. He thought about everything and every time he thought about it, he cried. How everything happened was like a fire burning in his very heart. Now, here he was, about to go through it all over again. “From the beginning?” He looked back up.

  Jimmy nodded.

  Rachel squeezed again.

  “When the tides changed, when Kalima came, everything grew dark. The world turned almost still. The days grew shorter and evil spread over this earth. Kalima changed everything when he stepped in with Devish. The walkers attacked mercilessly everyone who opposed them. They burned everything they touched. The humans broke off into groups, each of them trying to survive the onslaught. The wanderers were no different.”

  “What do you mean?” Jimmy continued. He and Robert were the only two talking.

  “Some of us joined with the humans when they hid. Some joined the fight, while others faded away, too damned afraid to come out. Others did something very different. They joined with the walkers. They joined with Devish.” He looked at Rachel. “You were one that did.”

  Hearing that, she looked up. “What?” She looked at Jimmy, and back to Robert again. She let go of his hand and stood one-step away from his side.

  “Not all wanderers were within the light Rachel. Some chose to remain in the night.” Rob looked at Jimmy, and then turned to her again. He walked over to her and retook both of her hands. “I’m sorry Rachel. I’m sorry to tell you this, but you did.”

  She shook her head. She did the same thing with her arms, shaking them out of his hands. “Are you trying to tell me that I’m evil? Are you
saying that I joined with this Devish guy? I couldn’t be. I would never do that.” She looked at Jimmy with a slightly overwhelmed look flushing over her face.

  Seeing her, he felt more than pain for her, he felt downright scared. He looked to Robert, not sure what else to think about any of this. “You must be wrong, Robert. You have to be.”

  Robert turned to him with a slight bend to the neck, so he could keep his eyes on hers. “It’s what happened Rachel. I can’t change the past. Remember, I didn’t want to do this in the first place. You all wanted to know.”

  She blinked. “What did I do?” She took everything in. She kept telling herself that she wasn’t evil. She would never do anything like that. Not now. She was her own person now.

  “You joined with Devish.” He turned back to Jimmy. “You joined with the black wolf.” He walked over towards the wall to his right. “You devastated me when you did everything. You turned against everything we were and stood for. You made me fight against you.” He reached the wall and leaned both arms against it. Tears again flowed through his eyes. “You made me fight against us.”

  Rachel could feel nothing but disbelief. “How would I do that? I wouldn’t. I couldn’t do such a thing.”

  Robert lifted his head and took an everlasting long breath. He found it rather hard to breathe right. “When I found you with the block on you, I retaught you a simpler life. If I let you stay the way you were, you would have gone back to him. I decided to change that. I decided to change you.”

  “You kept her the way you wanted her?” Sasha listened to everything and found it just as disbelieving as Rachel did. The person that her brother was describing wasn’t her. It wasn’t the same person she now knew her to be.