Vorans and Vampires (Book 1): Voran the Night Guardian

by Donald Wigboldy

  Nick went to review his laptop’s progress on following the werewolves just in case something had changed, but there was little to review. Then he began to play with searches under werewolves and lycanthropes on the internet. The hope of finding a blog by a true werewolf was unlikely, but Nick figured it was worth a shot if he could find any new information on how werewolves truly acted.

  His sixth sense felt Geni before he heard the key in the lock. It was cleaning day! He had forgotten and, of course, he had his vampire girlfriend asleep in the other room. This could be bad.

  He stood up in his worry and realized that now he would look like he was waiting for her. That was just as suspicious and he might even be looking guilty, though he had nothing to be ashamed of since she was his girlfriend and just sleeping alone.

  Moving to the kitchen quickly, Nick grabbed the cereal realizing that it was breakfast time once more. His stomach even grumbled to remind him that they hadn’t eaten for several hours after a meal shared at the counter in the kitchen.

  Geni retrieved her key from the lock and noticed Nick in the kitchen. Her smile was weary as if she wasn’t getting much sleep, which she hadn’t thanks to the worry over her friend.

  “Hiya, Nick,” the girl greeted sounding warm despite her exhaustion. “How goes the search?”

  Right to the point, he thought to himself. The near miss from two nights ago came to his mind immediately. Nick wasn’t sure how to word it, but thought some information even if it wasn’t great was better than nothing at this point. “We nearly had her two nights ago. She was shifted to a new hiding place, but I am pretty sure I know where that is also. By Monday, I should have her,” he wanted to finish by saying or he’d never have her, but Geni probably couldn’t handle that harsh of news.

  “Really?!” the girl looked startled by his information and more energetic as well. She ran over and hugged Nick around his neck.

  “My team and I nearly had her. I can tell you that she is alive,” the man added not wanting to burst her bubble.

  “You have a team of people helping you?” she asked noting the extra dishes on the table and in the sink. “Apparently, they don’t do dishes either,” she giggled.

  He smiled and shook his head.

  His heightened hearing heard the bedroom door open and Nicola’s quiet footsteps on the carpet coming down the hall. Her appearance from around the wall to the kitchen half startled Geni, however, who let out a little, “Oh, are you one of the team helping, Nick?”

  Nicola had found a new shirt. She wore a red, cotton, short sleeve shirt that covered the upper part of her thighs barely, with the v neck revealing some of her cleavage since it was too big on her. If he didn’t have his young house keeper standing there, Nick would be admiring how well she wore this one too, but of course, that was not the case. He had a feeling this was more a show from Nicola to Geni to let her know that he was taken.

  Smiling politely, Nicola nodded, “Sort of, I’m also his girlfriend.”

  He noted the younger girl blink in surprise before darting a quick glance to him to confirm Nicola’s words. Recovering quickly, Geni said, “Nice to meet you. So you know that Nick’s been trying to find a friend of mine that we think might have been kidnapped?”

  Nicola’s stance softened slightly. Again she nodded, “Yes, they were barely able to keep her from us the other night. We know that she’s alive and most likely safe, but it won’t happen next time, right, Nicky?”

  He wanted to cringe as Geni noted the nickname that she also used. The college girl looked at him with a humored smile. “Like I said, yes, we’re pretty sure that we can get her out safely before the weekend.”

  “Can’t the police just bust in and get her away from him or them? How many people have her?”

  “There’s more than one involved, which is why we need to have a plan that leads to the best possibility of success. We want her out safe and sound, so we can’t just rush in and risk her safety. By Monday, she’ll be safely away from them.”

  Nicola raised a brow at the sureness of his speech. She knew how dangerous it would be and that it was a safe or dead scenario most likely. Geni, on the other hand, was nearly bouncing after his words.

  “You really think so, Nick? That would be great! I’m sure her family will be happy to get her back. Her parents have been to the dorm a few times and I’ve talked with them. I know that they’re worried. Maybe I should call them and let them know that you can find her?”

  Shaking his head slowly, the man stalled her. “Wait until we have her safe and sound, then we can let them see her. I don’t want them getting their hopes up too much; since we don’t the kind of trauma she’s been through. She may need a psychiatrist or other kinds of help. Lena may not be ready to see her family right away. Kidnappees can leave their captors in different states of mind, so I want to try and do this gently without their interference.”

  Geni frowned unhappy with his conclusion, but she didn’t argue. What he said could be proven. The fact that Lena would need a debriefing of some sort for sure was a definite. They couldn’t have her running back to her family telling stories of werewolves and vampires that was for sure.

  The morning continued with Geni trying to get answers to questions that Nick mostly couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. Nicola listened and stepped in from time to time, though he knew that she was mostly there to see if the college girl was something to be worried over. After all, the vampire believed that he was trying to save Lena for the girl’s sake as much as because it was a noble thing to do. That he was also trying to save one of his kind because she might be an important instrument in the fight against the evils of the night, was never stated.

  He wished that there was more that he could plan for the full moon attempt, but it was a situation that had too many variables that the voran just didn’t have any true answers too.

  Chapter 18-The Moon and Drugs

  It was the day of the full moon and Lena could feel her heart racing as her body virtually tingled with an energy that made her nervous. Since a little while after breakfast, she had really started to notice the shift. The werewolf inside her must have been trying to let her know it was trying to get out.

  Charlotte had been hovering more than ever as if waiting for the girl to lose her mind too early. After lunch, the feeling seemed a bit more heightened and at times Lena thought she was seeing things. Her balance would be affected at times as well. It would be her first change. The girl was not excited to think about it either and if there was a way to counteract the wolf inside, it looked like it would come too late. They said that once a werewolf went through their first full moon the curse was incurable.

  The werewolves had begun preparations for the night’s hunt. Eric checked his bag. Extra clothes and some rations for the morning after were already stashed like he always had; a couple bottles with the drugs he had been feeding the girl were thrown on top.

  “Eric?” the voice spoke quietly from the doorway.

  Turning to face Charlotte, the man frowned. “You’re supposed to be keeping an eye on the girl. What are you doing here?”

  “Logan’s watching her for me. The drugs are making her too loopy to do much anyway. Are you sure we should be doing this to her?”

  Eye’s narrowing slightly more at being questioned, Eric snapped, “I’m doing what’s necessary. That girl holds some secret and I need time to find out what or break her resistance. We’ll take her on the hunt when our power is the greatest and either she’ll change or we’ll kill her.

  “I warned you not to get too attached to her. You knew it could come to this.”

  The brunette brushed at an eye and the pack leader could see tears being held back in the other eye. Charlotte was the most unusual of his pack in that she was least like a werewolf. Often gruff and wild creatures, the woman and her brother remained nearly pristine in comparison. The show dog of his pack, she was also one of the most caring people Eric knew. He had worried that putting her in charg
e of Lena was a mistake.

  He sighed.

  “It can’t be personal. The girl, if she can’t be turned, has to be taken care of permanently. Anything less and she could expose us to the world.”

  “We could keep her here,” Charlotte suggested wistfully.

  Shaking his head, Eric refused her proposal. “If she won’t turn, then she’ll assume she’s a prisoner and be right about it. We’re werewolves. We don’t keep pets.

  “Now, are you ready for tonight? We’ll give the girl one last chance to become one of us and it’ll be over. Once the moon takes us over, it won’t matter why she can’t or won’t change. The wolves will hunt whatever prey is out there and you know that includes the girl.”

  She nodded and backed out of the door.

  Eric stood looking where Charlotte had been and worried over Lena one last time. He tried not to use her name. Using it would only, make it harder if they had to kill her. Wolves protected their own, but if she couldn’t change then she wasn’t one of them. More over, the girl left alive would be a threat and she was dangerous as they had all witnessed.

  By late afternoon, the werewolves were all having a last dinner before the change. Lena joined them. Eric dosed her portion once more making sure that she was properly drugged. Even coming to the meal, he could tell that she was still under the last dose’s influence. This last treatment would leave her more malleable for the night’s ritual.

  The werewolves were in high spirits at the dinner table. Lena sat in her place a bit subdued from the drugs, but the others ignored her as they talked more and more excitedly about how they would hunt tonight. By the time the food was gone, the sky was beginning to darken.

  Dishes were tossed in the sink or onto the counter before Eric began rounding them all up. “Let’s move people, the moon will rise in a little over an hour. Get a move on or we’ll have cars full of wolves.”

  Lena looked more out of it than ever after her latest drugging. Eric wondered if he had given her too much, but that was just a possibility they had to leave to fate. The girl survived or died as luck would have it.

  “Charlotte, take care of her,” the lead wolf ordered and joined the exodus headed for the door.

  Her brother gave her a hand with the girl.

  “Whoa, I’m sorry guys, but I am really feeling loopy,” Lena slurred through her words like she was drunk.

  “It’s alright, Lena,” Logan replied half carrying the girl between Charlotte and him. “It happens to the best of us. You must just be getting too excited for your first hunt.” The man looked over at his sister over the slumped girl who was barely able to put her feet under her.

  Looking apologetic, Charlotte nodded to her brother. The pack knew what was happening and most chose to ignore it. Eric was pack leader and no one had ever challenged that but one time. An upstart had challenged their leader and been soundly defeated more than six years ago. No one talked about that either, so the pack just followed along.

  This new issue of what was happening to Lena was starting to upset some of the pack, but no one could challenge Eric.

  “Come on, Lena, just put one foot in front of the other,” Charlotte said encouragingly.

  “You look funny,” Lena said laughing into her ear. “I think I can see your wolfiness already. You know I can sense where you guys are most of the time? Like little glowing balls of fur in my head,” the girl lapsed into laughter again.

  Charlotte glanced to Logan in confusion. Both wondered at this new piece of information. Was the girl merely that addled by the drugs or was she truly able to sense werewolves?

  The others had already gone outside leaving the three to close up behind them. Holding up her brother, Charlotte asked, “Have you always been able to see werewolves, Lena?”

  Shaking her head vigorously until she had to reach up and stop the movement with a groan, Lena’s eyes nearly rolled in her head. “Nah, I started seeing things when I was in the basement. I saw the blue icy blips for vampires and the warm furry blips for werewolves and then the grey fuzzy people on the block.” She suddenly smiled and nearly sounded lovesick as the girl added, “And that friendly blip of my guardian angel. Aw, I wish he was here to come on our trip. He seems so nice. He even followed us to the second house. I wonder if he knows about the hunt?”

  The two exchanged worried looks. A man that seemed different from the gray people around them and was her guardian angel had followed them?

  “Are you sure he followed us, sweetie?” Charlotte asked gently of the dazed girl.

  Over exaggerated nods expressed her surety before her words could come, “Yup, he was there a couple times. He kept me company outside the house when Cairvall tried to kill me even. Then when I was sleeping I felt him.” Lena looked at Charlotte and in a slightly higher voice that was near a whine in pitch, “He seems so nice. Can we invite him to come along?”

  “He’s not a werewolf, Lena. Only werewolves allowed,” Charlotte replied still trying to figure out this sudden information. She wasn’t prepared for the next thing to come out of Lena’s mouth.

  “But I think he’s a lot like me. If I can come, can’t he come?”

  The siblings looked at each other in a new clarity. Logan asked the question aloud, “What are you, Lena?”

  “I dunno. We’re different. I can tell, but now that I’m a werewolf I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Charlotte asked Logan quietly, “Should we tell Eric?”

  The brother pondered only a moment before shaking his head. “There may be something to what she says and maybe not. Either way I don’t think telling Eric will help.”

  Charlotte wondered at her brother’s words. She knew that Logan was one of those that had begun to wonder at Eric’s leadership. He wasn’t strong enough to risk fighting their leader, but he had proposed leaving to his sister once before. After that one private communication, Logan had been assigned to the second house while Charlotte was kept close to Eric and Vanessa, who worshipped him.

  “If she’s right about her guardian angel, then that must be the one that took down Ray. He scared me to death, Logan,” the girl admitted quietly.

  Logan nodded, “Then all the more reason to see if this guardian comes for her again. If he’s shadowed her, then maybe he’s doing it again.

  “Lena, do you sense the other man now?”

  Scrunching up her face as she closed her eyes a moment, Lena then opened first one then the other as she stated, “Nope, I guess he’s going to miss the hunt. That sucks. Oh well, I guess we’ll just to have to have fun without him,” she finished with another drunken laugh. “Oh, the room’s spinning again.”

  The siblings continued to look at each other as if communicating without speech, before finally hauling the girl through the door and closing it behind them.

  “Hurry up, you three!” Eric called from the open driver’s door of his car.

  They hurried and never said a word of what Lena had told them.

  The journey to the forest preserve woods took a little more than twenty minutes, but another ten to lead the vehicles in along an almost overgrown path. How Eric had found it, no one of the pack knew, but it served their purposes well. It still had pavement solid enough to admit the cars’ passing, though it was cracked from a lack of maintenance. The preserve didn’t fix old roads that weren’t used often.

  Reaching their destination a few minutes later, the werewolves unpacked themselves from the vehicles quickly. They could all feel that they were close to the change. The weather was as warm as they had been given in months. Still in the low sixties, it was the first time in months that wolves could ready themselves without shivering.

  Lena was slightly more lucid as if the initial high was starting its way back down towards the plateau she existed in most of the afternoon. She followed the pack on her own feet though she still appeared a little dizzy in her orientation.

  Some of the males had begun to strip off their shirts and wave them around whooping it
up. Many of the women joined in the shouting, but didn’t take anything off yet. They found their starting clearing and the pack gathered around Eric who stood on a log that could have been used by campers to sit in front of a depression that had once been a fire pit.

  “My brothers and sisters, another full moon is upon us! We have had a busy month since the last moon. Vampires have threatened us not once but twice! We must take the strength given us by the full moon and recharge our batteries to ready ourselves to track down these creatures. As the weather warms, we wolves will have to watch for more of the blood suckers. We need to find where they are coming from and hunt their lairs down. We won’t wait for another surprise attack. It will be us doing the attacking from now on if I have any say in it.

  “There will be no more of the pack killed by them. We will hunt them to extinction and show them the power of the pack!”

  The pack cheered their leader. If they all believed in his plan or not, the wolf pack was united behind him. Charlotte felt tense standing beside her brother who quietly listened and watched Eric and the pack. The siblings had never been the most outspoken of the pack anyway so no one noticed.

  Lena cheered along with the rest though it was more the drunken enthusiasm seen in a bar when the spirits led people to cheer at anything because others were doing it. Charlotte held out an arm when the girl stumbled forward a bit to catch her. She sighed even as the other wolves continued to get worked up.

  An energy seemed to begin tingling in them all now. The moon was about to reveal itself. The pack readied themselves by pulling off shirts and shoes. Pants and soon even underwear were thrown to the ground.

  Charlotte assisted Lena with her clothes. The odds were she wouldn’t change, but if she didn’t, Eric and the pack would tear her apart. Charlotte figured to save her clothing from the mauling wolves if she could.

  Couples exchanged kisses and embraces a moment before the moon finally showed itself. Lena under the influence of the drugs hardly noticed her bared skin, but she did notice Logan.