Vincent could clearly see everything that his master felt written in his eyes. “My master, we have to stop this. We must stop before you die.”
Devish shook his head. It looked soft and was just as weak. “No. We must continue.” His voice came within the sounds of his roar. It made it hard for Vincent to hear him right.
The doctor looked at the chard that he had just pulled out. “There is more there. He cannot take anymore. I must stop.” He showed the piece to Vincent, standing on his left.
Devish roared, “NO! You must continue.”
Vincent jumped some from the sound of his roar. His words even started to sound weak. He looked at the piece and then back to the doctor again. “Continue. You must remove all of them. We need him strong again.”
The doctor took a deep breath before continuing. He reached back to the heart and once again pushed it aside. He reached in again with his left hand, found another piece of oak wood, just to the right of the heart, and grabbed it with a firm grip.
The pressure came again, but this time from deep inside his chest. Devish flinched feeling the weakness build again. It grew stronger with the pressure.
The doctor took the piece and pulled, removing it from the heart. He again took the chard and tossed it to the top of the tray. He looked back seeing one more piece. This one looked deeper than the others. It also looked bigger. This he liked seeing. He could take it easier, he felt sure of it.
Vincent watched his master’s eyes begin to fade from their normal deep red color to something that looked closer to pink. He could also see them beginning to haze over. If the doctor couldn’t finish this soon, he was going to die. He had it written all over his face.
The doctor took the piece with a solid grip. Once he held it firmly, he pulled.
A squishy, watery sound came out with the chard. When it was free, and he held it out in front of him, he finally relaxed.
Vincent saw the piece and likewise did the same thing. “Is that the last one?” He could only hope.
The doctor dropped the chard to the tray and looked back to the heart. He saw nothing else there, so he let go of it and removed his hand. “Those were all that I could see.” He looked over his shoulder towards Vincent.
Vincent nodded, feeling relief flow through him fast. “Close him up before he loses what blood he has left.” He took a step back, but kept his eyes on the wound.
The doctor removed the clamps.
They watched the bones come back together.
But they weren’t closing. The bones weren’t healing back together again.
“Step away from the table doctor, if you would please.” Vincent didn’t wait for him to hear him, and instead, he pushed him back.
With the doctor out of his way, he took his place over his master, lifted his right arm to his mouth and bit down onto his wrist.
Blood instantly flowed from the wound, and with it, he held it over his master’s ribs.
He watched the blood drip all over the bone. He poured it liberally and with it covered, and his own wrist already starting to heal, he pulled his arm back to his side.
Now he watched. Now he waited. Now he hoped.
The bone took the blood and instantly it began to reform. The sawed cut disappeared slowly. When it looked complete again, the skin flapped together again over it.
Vincent watched it likewise come together and heal. With it finished, he turned back to the doctor who was now standing behind him. “Bring in his dinner if you would please.”
The doctor nodded, turned, and left the room.
Within a second, he returned, leading a young man ahead of him with him.
Vincent watched him come back and then turned to the two men at the head of the table and then to the woman at his feet. “Release him.” He looked back to his master’s eyes.
He kept them closed, and when he felt his hands and legs released, he opened them up again.
They watched him pull his arms down to his sides. He then sat up, moving so slowly that he almost looked odd. He turned and looked towards the door.
Vincent watched his pink colored eyes blink and grow large once he saw his meal.
He moved fast, pouncing on the young man so quickly that it made all of them gasp with seeing his speed. They watched him open his mouth and tackle the man to the floor, plunging his teeth through his throat. All they heard was a deep sucking sound, and after a minute or so, they heard the sound then stop.
He then stood back up and turned.
His pink eyes flared to a bright overpowering red. His pale skin turned instantly to a healthy looking tan. His face went from his snouted bat-like look to a normal human all too fast. His body cracked as he grew shorter, almost until he was just about as tall as Vincent was. The wound on the left side of his face instantly disappeared. All of his wounds did within a blink of an eye.
Vincent watched him become human looking again. He also looked younger. He looked stronger. He looked complete again. “My master? You are you again. You have done it.”
Devish took a deep breath, feeling all of the air in the room flow through him like ice. It felt beyond wonderful. It felt so right. Finished, he also looked refreshed. “Yes my friend. I feel it so.” He looked at his arms, and lifted them out to his sides.
They looked strong. His skin looked fresh. His muscles looked firm.
He looked down at his bare chest and saw his skin sparkle. He looked down at his feet beneath his pants and saw that they too looked human again. The paws were gone. His feet felt right. Seeing his entire body, he looked normal. He felt strong again.
“How do you feel?” Vincent couldn’t believe how well his master looked. With it, he had confidence flow through his essence with a clarity that felt beyond fantastic. He felt downright too wonderful to be alive.
Vincent looked into his eyes.
“I feel like me again my friend.” And a huge smile crossed his face.
23
The trip went by quickly. They managed to get back to New York City just before dawn. Once there, Jimmy and Sasha changed back to their human forms, and from there, they made it back to Collins’ old house. They went inside and closed the door.
“My, this is a nice place.” Ross stepped into the living room and sat down onto the sofa with an exhaustive hunch. He’d never spent a night like that before, riding the back of a huge werewolf as it ran through the trees. Who would have? What he loved the most was the creature’s strength. He loved its speed. He cherished its smell. He loved it oh so much. He would never forget such a thing.
“I’ve had this place for years. I bought it new.” Jimmy walked into the living room, moved to the bay window, and pulled its curtains shut. Finished, he turned back to the others. “I fell in love with the place after finding it.” He put his hands onto his hips, relaxing them there. “So much has changed since then. The whole city feels so different. It’s so much bigger. There’s so much more concrete than I remember it back then.”
Ross nodded. The smell was there. That heavy must flowed over the walls like an aroma that was too much to take in all at once. Again he loved it all so much. The air seemed saturated with it. The very walls reeked with the scent.
Robert looked around the living room and looked back to Jimmy. “You should get some rest, we all should. Night will come on us soon enough.”
Brandon and Sasha stood next to Robert, just beneath the archway to the living room. “He’s right. We need to get some rest.”
Jimmy nodded. “You both go ahead. Take Ross with you upstairs and put him in one of the bedrooms.”
“Sounds good. Do you mind which room?” Brandon walked into the living room, took Ross under his right arm and lifted him up in front of him.
Ross gasped with his strength. He shook within his icy touch.
Jimmy shook his head.
Sasha stayed at the archway and leaned against the wall. “You need rest too Jimmy.” She stepped aside as Brandon and Ross passed her to head to the stai
rs.
“I will. I’m going to stay out here on first watch. We don’t need something getting inside and coming after us as we sleep.”
Sasha nodded, and passed him a smile. She said nothing else as she turned and headed to the stairs.
Brandon waited for her on the last step on the second floor.
Robert turned and watched her leave. Now that he and Jimmy were alone, he wanted to talk about everything that they have learned thus far.
Jimmy had the same idea, so he waited for Sasha to leave too. “Are you sure that these elders are going to help us?” He began. He moved to the sofa and sat down with a heavy heave. He did feel tired some. With his mind racing like it was, he paid none of the feeling any mind.
Robert nodded. “Many of them have become very comfortable to the way things are now. They won’t give that up.”
“Are you so sure about that?” Jimmy put his t-shirt back on. When he finished, he sat his hands to the top of his knees. He tried to relax but found it rather difficult to do. He felt anxious. He felt ready for anything, and didn’t know how to gather himself right. He could only hope that by sitting there, he would come to relax, but so far, it didn’t seem to work all that well.
“Why do you say that?” Robert walked over to the large mantled fireplace and stopped in front of it. On the shelf there were several pictures there. A man with long blonde hair was in each of them, and looking at them, he didn’t know who it was. He could only imagine that it had to be Collins. In fact he looked like the same man he saw in Jimmy’s memories.
Jimmy shrugged while watching him carefully. “Only from what I’ve heard, they don’t seem to like Kalima all that much. Why would they help him and thus help me?”
With this, Robert chuckled some before answering him. “He did a lot of things that went against them, all of those many years ago. He turned against them. A few of them, not many of them really, would never really forgive him for what he did.”
Jimmy nodded and shrugged at the same time. “I guess, but that’s a part of my point. Why would they help him now?”
Robert turned back to him. “They just won’t want to lose what they’ve gained. They’ve become wealthy living in this world. They’re become powerful, probably more so, than they ever were before. Why would anyone want to give that up? Why would they and have to go back to fighting for the very same things that they already have?”
Jimmy nodded, accepting this. “I can see that. And that’s something that also bothers me too.” He folded his hands together between his knees. “Why does Devish want to restart the war? Why, if he too can have what the others have, would he do something like that? Why risk it?”
Robert walked to the front of the sofa and placed his hands into the side pockets of his trousers. He looked down. “To be honest with you Jimmy—hate drives people to do terrible things. Walkers are no different.”
“So he hates for the sake of it.”
Robert nodded. “People do. Why not walkers?”
This perked Jimmy up. He now felt fully awake. “Tell me about the war. What happened?”
Robert now felt the need to sit down, so he did, and sat down next to Jimmy. “It was a very different time back then. The world was so very different.”
“Do you remember all of this clearly?”
Robert laughed some. “I was there Jimmy.” He also folded his hands in front of him and between his knees. He looked at them with a small sense of a shudder raking through his spine. “I’ve never died. It was my biggest gift.” He looked at Jimmy and shrugged too.
Jimmy couldn’t believe what he just heard. “You what?” He couldn’t comprehend any of it and needed to hear it again first.
“I’m immortal Jimmy. Or at least I just haven’t died yet. Whichever is which, I’m not sure anymore.”
Jimmy took this in. With it taking hold, the very idea of what he heard made Rachel’s face come up again in his mind. “So that means that Rachel is too. She’s also immortal.”
Robert nodded. “She is. We were the only ones who were. We never aged. We never grew old. We just passed on as the world aged around us.”
For Jimmy, the very idea struck him hardest. “Rachel is very special, isn’t she?” For all this time, he always believed that he and she would never be able to be together because of what he was. Part of this was the fact that he was an animal, but another part was because he knew that he would live past her. She would die one day, and he would be left alone. Now knowing this, that she was special too, everything felt better instantly.
“She is. She was there. She lived in that time.”
Jimmy swallowed hard and turned to him again. “Tell me about it. Tell me about that time.”
Robert thought long and hard before he began. He had to clear his thoughts long enough to think straight. “We were born when the world was dominated by the walkers. Humans treated them like gods. They actually worshiped them. They offered them everything they were. When we wanderers were first born, we became a caste of priests. We helped the walkers control the humans. We gathered their sacrifices for them.”
Jimmy sat up straight. “Sacrifices?”
Robert nodded. “Before humans came, the blood walkers hunted other species to extinction. To protect their food source they devised a more orderly way of feeding. It worked for a long time, until humans learned the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That walkers were never gods.”
Jimmy agreed with that. “So that’s when the wanderers taught them how to fight.”
Robert shook his head. “We only did that after something else happened.”
“What was that?”
Again Robert had a shudder flow down his spine. The very memory always caused this. It was such a terrible memory that he felt sure that it always would. “A blood walker by the name of Satar committed the ultimate crime, at least in the eyes of his brethren.”
“What was that?”
“Blood walkers stopped having children. Instead, they made concubines out of humans. After learning that some could become walkers after the bite, they turned to that instead. One, Satar, dared to challenge that custom.”
“What did he do?”
The shudder flared again, as he continued. “He fell in love with a human woman.”
Jimmy listened and looked down at his hands. He was listening so closely to everything that he began to tense up some. He could see this in his hands. They were beginning to turn white. “They didn’t like that then. They didn’t like him falling in love with a woman, a human.” He felt close to this. He thought of Rachel again.
Robert shook his head. “Falling in love with a human angered all of the families. It angered the other blood walkers. They believed that it would violate their bloodlines. That it would pollute their species.”
Jimmy nodded.
“Anyway, when that happened, Satar refused to kill her after they tried to force him to do it. He turned against the families. He turned against his own.”
Jimmy laughed some, hearing this. “I can understand that. Love is overpowering to you sometimes.”
Robert nodded before continuing again. “After Satar, after what he started, we wanderers then turned against our families. We started the war. We fought it. We led it.”
“Is that why Devish is so eager to restart it? It sounds like he just can’t bring himself to think of humans as anything other than just food.”
Robert shook his head, and had a slight nod within it too. “He didn’t fight for his right to keep food. He fought for his family. He fought against his very own father.”
Hearing this, Jimmy lifted his head. He understood what he just heard and it sparked his mind. “Satar was his father.” He unfolded his hands and brought them back up to his thighs. He also had to sit back.
Robert nodded firmly. “He hated his father for loving a woman—a human. He hated the things that he gave her. He hated the mixing of the species. He fought for that and his hatred alon
e.”
Jimmy agreed with that. “I understand his rage now. Now I completely understand him.” Now that he had his answer to a part of this, it was time to turn his attention to the rest. “How did I defeat him the last time? How did it happen?”
Robert sat back as well. “I don’t know that really. After Kalima turned to our side, to the side of the humans, he fought Devish and defeated him. He stabbed him through the chest. Because of that, because of doing it, he brought on the truce.”
Jimmy didn’t like hearing this. “I was hoping that you knew what I did last time, so I could do it again.” He finished with a slight chuckle rumbling through his belly. He truly meant what he said.
Robert smiled. “The only person who knows the truth is Rachel. I think that’s why Devish blocked her mind. He wanted to hide what really did happen.”
“Why is she so important to him? What can she do?”
Robert gulped some with an empty, dry mouth. It hurt some as he did it. “We are twins. We have roughly the same powers, but not totally the same.”
“What do you mean?”
He swallowed again, and again, it hurt some doing it. “I may have been born first, but I’m not the strongest one of us. Rachel, or Rana as she was known back then, was. Where I can see through someone’s eyes, she can become them. She can control their minds and thus control everything they are.”
It was Jimmy’s turn to swallow with a dry gulp. “Now I know why he wanted her.”
Robert nodded with agreement.
Jimmy accepted that. He now wanted to know more about his Rachel. He wanted the whole truth too. “Tell me about her. Why did she turn and side with Devish? Why did she turn against you too?”
Robert felt shallow. He felt disjointed. He hated the memories of what happened with his sister. He took his time to answer the question. He needed the time to tell it right. When he felt ready, he began. “Rana and I were born a long time ago. Our father was a new nightwalker. When he turned, he refused to leave our mother. He refused to kill her. He loved her too much and thus we were born.”
A Werewolf's Saga Books 4, 5, & 6 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets Book 2) Page 33
