by Night, H. T.
A couple of hours later, Maya woke me up. “Tommy, Tommy,” she said.
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Feel my face. I think I’m getting a fever.”
I sat up and felt her face, and she was very hot. “You’re hot,” I said.
“Do you have any Tylenol?”
“I have aspirin.”
“I need something stronger.”
“Down the street, there’s a Walgreen’s that’s open 24 hours. I can go down and pick up some for you.”
“Could you?”
“Sure,” I said. I would have gone to downtown London for her.
“Could you also get something for a sore throat, my throat is scratchy!”
“No problem.” I got up and put my shoes on and grabbed my keys. It was 5:00 a.m., so Sasha had about an hour left to be a werewolf. She was amazingly quiet. I don’t think she saw me. Just before I left the apartment, I put my hands through the bars and stroked her soft fur. Her ears pricked up, but she didn’t turn around or try to bite me. She was wrapped up in her werewolf world. If she was going to put the bite on me, it wouldn’t be tonight. She was almost tame.
I got into my car and headed to the store. I decided to pick up a few items while I was there. It had been awhile since I’d been to a convenience store so I needed some things. I took about a half an hour going over the aisles, shopping. I brought my stuff to the register. It was two hand baskets filled to the rim. I guess I did go a little crazy.
It came out to $140.37. That was officially the most money I had ever spent at a Walgreen’s or any other convenience store.
I got back to my apartment right as the sun came up. I entered my apartment, holding two big plastic bags filled with everything from cough syrup to toothpaste.
I put the bags on the kitchen table and watched as the werewolf turned back into Sasha in beautiful girl form. She was drenched and she laid in the middle of the floor, shivering. I opened the gate and unlocked all of her chains. She looked up at me like she had just got done running a marathon.
I went and got a couple of towels from the bathroom and came back and wiped her down and dried her off.
“Thanks, Tommy,” she said, in a hoarse voice.
“No problem, what are friends for.”
“You really are a good friend. You have a great heart.”
I smiled at Sasha. “You do, too, when you allow yourself to be honest with yourself.”
“I was being honest with myself. That’s why I had to leave. I saw how happy Maya made you. I saw how perfect she was and how she is everything I’m not. I knew I couldn’t handle being around you two.”
“How do you feel now?”
“I’ll be okay. She’s a lucky girl, and I’ll make sure she knows it.”
“It’s okay; you don’t have to do that. Let me grab a couple of Maya’s things so you can change your clothes.” They were about the same size and I knew Maya wouldn’t mind.
I walked into my bedroom to grab the clothes and I thought my eyes had deceived me. Maya was gone! Not only was she gone, my bedroom window was wide open!
“Maya!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I stuck my head out of the window and could see footprints below in the dirt. My heart fell out of my chest. “No! No! Patrick!” I screamed.
I ran to Patrick’s room, it was locked. I yelled for him to open it.
“What’s wrong?” Sasha ran over to me.
“Patrick! Open the fucking door!” There was no response. I took a step back and kicked the door open. Patrick wasn’t there and his window was wide open too, with cardboard and masking tape ripped off the wall, with pieces hanging out the window.
“What the hell is going on?” I screamed. “What the fuck!”
“Tommy, calm down. There’s got to be a clear reason why this happened.”
I looked at Sasha with disdain, “Yeah, there’s a clear reason! You and Patrick have cursed me! What the fuck did you do, Sasha?” I pinned Sasha up against the wall.” “Did you lead some Carni…or Mani to my apartment? Huh? Answer me!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Sasha looked horrified.
I couldn’t tell if she knew anything or not. “You must know something, Sasha! This is your fucking world! You must have led someone here and they took Maya!” I looked at the two empty rooms from the hallway, “And they probably killed Patrick!”
“Patrick!” Sasha screamed. And her face said it all, how much she cared for him.
I was horrified. What had just happened? Why did I leave Maya by herself? Why? I was only gone for an hour to the drugstore. How long had Patrick been gone? I only assumed he had been sleeping. He could have been gone since yesterday.
I fell to my knees. “What am I going to do? I don’t know what to do. Help me, Sasha. If you know anything…”
Sasha dropped to the floor next to me. “Tommy, you need to believe me when I say I had nothing to do with this! I was locked away in my cage, keeping the world safe from me and keeping myself safe from the world.”
“I don’t care. That’s not going to make anything better. I need to find Maya.”
“Just try to relax. Let’s piece this together.”
“What’s there to piece together? They came in and killed Patrick, and then took Maya.”
“But they came into two different windows. That means they had to come at different times.”
“No, they could have come in through one and left through the other.”
“Then why was Patrick’s door locked? Why isn’t there any kind of mess by either door? They only came in and out of the same windows.”
“Okay, but what difference does that make?”
“I bet they got Patrick the night before, not last night. They must have been waiting for you to leave Maya’s side so they could get her.”
Just the thought of someone touching Maya against her will made me want to throw up. “Why? Why would they want Maya?”
“Because they want you, Tommy. It is obvious that Mani have done this. It must be that brotherhood crew from the other night. I think they kidnapped Maya as bait to draw you to their lair, their hideout. On their turf, they probably have a way to beat you, but not here on your turf. They are probably setting you up with a lot of people and all kinds of traps and weapons that go beyond fists and feet.”
I looked at Sasha and she seemed real certain about what she was saying. “Why do they want me?” I asked.
“Because they know how tough you are. You beat the crap out of three of them and you’re a human. They can only imagine how insanely powerful you’d be as a vampire.”
“They kidnapped Maya, so I will come after them?” I asked stupidly.
“That’s what I’m saying. They probably won’t hurt Maya because they know that if she is transformed to Mani, that you won’t want her.”
My mouth dropped open at how clever Sasha was, how she extrapolated all of this from the few clues that we had. I had seriously underestimated my slender werewolf friend. She was as clever as she was pretty.
“But why?”
“Tommy, they can have any human they want. They hand-picked her to get to you. They don’t want to kill you. They want you on their team. If you were turned Mani, their creepy cult gang would be invincible. They could take over Southern California. And that’s just for starters.”
“Well, if they intentionally wanted me to come to them, why aren’t there any clues about where they went?”
Sasha thought for a minute. “Well, there’s one huge clue.”
“What is it?”
“They left me alive. They didn’t find the need to kill me.”
“Would they just have killed you for sport?”
“Oh, they would had killed me and not batted an eye. They left me alive for a reason. They knew I could lead you to them.”
“Can you?”
Sasha was quiet.
“Can you?” I shouted.
“I’m thinking.”
Sasha and I picked ourselves off the floor and went into the kitchen. “Okay, let’s start here,” I said. “Where have you been the last two weeks?”
“I was staying with a friend in Arrowhead.”
“Arrowhead? In the mountains?”
“Is there another?”
“Do you know of any Mani hot spots up there?”
“Yeah, there’s the biggest one in Southern California. It’s called the Flatlands. All Mani and future Mani go there. It’s like their traditional hang out.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a gravel parking lot; Sometimes they set up bonfires and hang out all night.”
“What about during the day?”
“Mani can’t function during the day unless they transition into birds.”
“Then, who’s watching Maya?” I yelled.
“Probably future Mani, like Patrick. If he’s not dead, maybe even him.”
“What does that mean? What the fuck is a future Mani?”
“They usually are teenagers who are waiting to be fully developed until they turn. They want to have maximum height and muscle mass before they become vampires because after they transition, their bodies can’t further mature.”
“It makes sense,” I said. “So, some of these teenagers might be keeping Maya hostage?”
“I would bet on it,” Sasha said, confidently. “They are going to stay hidden until tonight and more than likely meet up with whoever originally took Maya at the flatlands.”
“So, I have to sit around all day and not know what to do?” I knew I was going to lose my mind waiting around all day.
“I know it’s going to be hard, but from everything I know, there is no way they would harm her. They want you on board with them happy, not looking for revenge. I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t treating her like a queen. Well, a captive queen. She’s a hostage for negotiation, not their dinner. Not their new girlfriend either. I hope.”
A surge of anger blasted through me. “I swear to God, if anyone of those guys lays a hand on her in any way, I’ll kill the whole lot of them.”
“Trust me, Tommy. They know that. They are just using her as bait.” She paused. “Are we going?”
“Hell, yes!”
Chapter Eleven
This was the longest day of my life. I felt so guilty not calling Maya’s parents and telling them that Maya might be in some kind of danger. I even debated getting Josiah involved. I knew he could kick as much ass as I could. And that was what I needed…another ass-kicking machine. But there was no way I could put a sixteen-year-old boy in that kind of jeopardy. I knew he would jump at the chance, especially for his sister, but I couldn’t do it.
Sasha wanted to come with me. She said she would take off into the woods once she became a werewolf and distract some of their attention to her. I told her to stay at my house, but she insisted on coming because she knew exactly where to go.
“You need me on this trip, Tommy. Not only do I know just where to go. I can kick some ass, too, if the going gets tough. Unless you are going to go get Josiah, you need me to have your back.”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Why didn’t you want to bite me last night, and turn me to Carni?”
“I was just about to come out of my werewolf state and I had this awareness that you were stroking me, comforting me. Were you?”
“Yeah. I was hoping you would bite me and I would turn. Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. Usually, I don’t have human awareness when I am a werewolf. It’s all instinct, and less introspection. Last night, in my werewolf state, as I was approaching what was probably the last hour of my transition, I had this awareness of comfort and friendship as you stroked me. For the first time in my werewolf skin, I wasn’t alone in my world. You were there with me, caring about me.”
“Wow,” I said, and we hugged.
“Should we stay here and wait for dark so you can bite me and turn me?”
“Tommy, get real. Someone has to drive your car to Arrowhead.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Hurry up. Or you will have a full-size werewolf in your car when it gets dark.”
“Oh shit,” I said, and ramped up my getting-ready speed.
We got in my Mustang and headed to the Arrowhead Mountains. It was nearing dark, and as we got closer to the Flatlands my adrenalin was off the map. I had no idea how I was going to control myself. All I knew was I needed to make sure Maya was okay and get to the mountains before Sasha turned into a werewolf in my moving car.
I pulled into a rocky parking lot. “This piece of shit area is Flatlands?” I asked.
“It’s not exactly Griffith Park, but it’s a pretty popular area up here.”
There was no one in the parking lot. Not one body, not one car. “Do you think you made a mistake?”
“I’m sure I haven’t,” Sasha said. “There is still a little bit of daylight and the Mani can’t transition yet.” Sasha looked at herself in the passenger-side vanity mirror on the visor. “My pupils are turning yellow. Tommy, I’m going to turn at any moment. I need to get away from you. I don’t want to bite you and turn you yet. You need all of your human faculties to rescue Sasha, and Patrick, too.” She shoved open the door, and left my Mustang.
“Sasha!” I yelled out.
She turned around, “Yeah?”
“Thank you. Be safe.”
“You, too. And Tommy, this is very important: Don’t let a Mani bite you or it’s all over. Everything. Not just your life as you know it, but if a Mani bites you, they will kill Patrick, if he is still alive, and Maya will be lost to you forever.”
I shivered at her words of warning and watched as she ran toward the woods, first on two legs and then on all fours. The sun had set and the moon was in full view. I had to admit, whenever the full moon came out I got an extra boost of energy like I had just downed six Red Bull energy drinks.
I looked on as I saw Sasha turn into a werewolf. She took off running into the woods, bounding, leaping, howling. She was beautiful, truly poetry in motion, a full-grown female wolf. I felt my face; my beard was as long as ever and I knew that when I was a transitioned Carni, that this would be my wolf’s mane. I decided to get back in my car and wait.
About ten minutes went by and then all hell broke loose. Four vehicles whizzed into the parking lot. A couple of black ravens and red hawks landed in the middle of the ground. I looked on and watched as the two ravens transitioned into two Mani men.
Sasha’s words rang in my ears. Don’t let a Mani bite you!
One of them was seven feet tall and looked like the guy from the desert that killed that enormous werewolf. The other was about my size. The red hawk transitioned into a beautiful red-headed woman. She was the same person who was finishing off Carni after they were injured from the other night.
She walked over and got into one of the cars and sat next to a blonde woman dressed in a black-hooded robe that semi-shielded her face. That had to be Maya! I jumped out of my car at the sight of her. I stood in front of my Mustang all by myself. On the other side of this gravel yard they called Flatlands were four cars filled with God knows what creatures and Maya. I was worried about Patrick, too, but he wasn’t my priority. I hoped he wouldn’t be my enemy in this fight, because I loved him. But Maya was my reason for existing. I was driven to ridiculous courage by my love for her.
One by one, the car doors opened and people got out. I wasn’t sure if they were all Mani, but that question was soon answered for me.
Monty, the main vampire from the other night, made his way to the middle of the group. I wasn’t sure who was in charge. I scanned the group and then I saw Patrick. Two Mani men had him pinned by his arms. Thank God, Patrick was alive! And obviously not on their team. Yet!
I noticed that Maya was still in the car with a red-headed woman. Our eyes made contact. She appeared shaken up and worried. She pushed the hood back, so that I could see it was her and not some creature.
“Let her
go,” I yelled. Someone laughed from the back. He made his way to the front and the asshole had green hair. He had obviously dyed it to look menacing, but he looked more like Kermit the Frog than an intimidating vampire.
“Who are you?” I yelled out
“Me?” the green-haired man said, “Monty, I thought you said this strapping young man would make a great addition to our brotherhood?”
Monty made room for the green-haired man to have center stage. “Trust me, he will,” Monty said.
“How can I ask anyone to join my Brotherhood when he doesn’t even know who I am?”
“Get over it, Kermie,” I said. “I’m not exactly keen to your world! It’s nothing personal. Why don’t you let Maya go; she has nothing to do with this.”
“We plan on letting her go in due time, but first, you and I need to have a little chat.” This guy was really feminine. It was really throwing me off.
“Just let her go. It’s not personal!” I insisted.
“When you say that this isn’t personal, that’s where you’re wrong. This whole meeting is personal. We have your girl and your friend. If we didn’t make this personal, then we didn’t do our job.” He grinned evilly, his fangs exposed. I had the creeps. Big time. Fear prickled up and down my spine.
If I wanted Maya back safely, I knew I needed to play ball with this guy. “What do want to chat about?” I asked.
“You’re our number one draft pick. We’re here to make sure you sign with us.”
“I don’t even know who you are!”
“We’re the Notre Dame of the paranormal world. Everyone wants to sign with us. We’re the best.”
“You have an interesting way of trying to persuade me, by kidnapping my girlfriend and taking my friend,” I said. “And you can’t convince me you aren’t evil by using football metaphors!” I yelled. “There’s a place in hell for guys like you, but you’re so evil, you can’t even get in there because the devil would be jealous!”
“We do have a case of the dramatics, don’t we? But I guess it’s par for the course for a Theater Arts grad.” He turned around and laughed at his own joke with his Mani henchmen. The others saw him laughing and joined in. Yep, henchmen. Followers. I knew that if I brought Green Hair down, the others would be easier.
