Rise of the Death Walkers (The Circle of Heritage Saga)

by Lawrence Nason Jr.

  “Well I heard Jenna singing in the bathroom then I opened the door and walked in. After that I do not remember anything until I saw you standing here Sam.”

  “Hmmm. I don’t know what to make of this. I have never heard of someone who could cause this kind of reaction from a simple song.” I saw Gramps and Mimi exchange looks and then Gramps continued. “This is not important right now we can discuss this later after I do some researching. For now just finish your shower and we can then get you home to Sally.”

  “Why Aunt Sally? How come I can’t go home to Mom and the boys?” I asked. I was confused.

  “Oh dear lord,” gasped Mimi, “You don’t know yet.”

  “Know what?” I was even more confused and I reviewed my last sequence of memories before the long period of disorientation. “No no no nooooooo,” I realized what they meant. My mother was dead. “He killed her. My God that monster killed my mother!” I was shaking uncontrollably.

  “Calm down love. We are here for you.” Mimi said trying to sooth me.

  “Calm down?” The light began to flicker as I got angrier. The drops of water on the sink began to vaporize. “That monster killed my mother and you want me to calm down?” A crack appeared in the large bathroom mirror and slowly began to move to the center of the mirror. I was beyond being consoled. “Calm down I will show you calmed down!” The sink basin shattered and sprayed a fountain of ceramic pieces all over us. I could feel the pieces as they sliced into my left arm and the left side of my face.

  Gramps looked at Mimi and nodded. When Mimi moved toward me I looked at her and I could feel the force emanating from me. She was flung backwards into the other room. Before I could turn back to my grandfather, I felt the prick of a hypodermic needle being stuck in my arm. I felt betrayed because I had trusted my grandfather. I felt the darkness creeping on and sunk to the floor. Gramps helped me to the floor and stretched me out.

  “What is happening Gramps?” I asked confused at what just had happened.

  “We will worry about that later Jenna you just rest now.” His voice sounded like it was full of sorrow.

  I tried to reply, but whatever he had injected me with was working fast. The last thing I remembered was his face above me and he was smiling at me. Then the darkness took over.

  Chapter 2 - Decisions

  When I saw my wife being propelled thought the air, I knew I had to do something about Jenna and quick. Since I knew some of the things my offspring were capable of, I had a dose of diazepam with me. I generally tried to be prepared when dealing with the emergence of the talents my offspring had. I lay Jenna on the floor and then went into the other room to see what condition Amanda was in.

  “Amanda are you ok?” I reached down and offered my hand to her.

  “Yes Sam. I am Ok. I am just feeling foolish for not seeing this coming. Thank the spirits of our forefathers. That girl shows all the characteristic of an Enchantress.” She took my hand and pulled herself up.

  I tried to dress the various places where she was bleeding but she pushed my hand away. “An Enchantress? I have never heard of this before. What is it?”

  “Shows you, you old fool! You are not well versed in the history of our tribe from the female point of view.” Amanda scolded. “There has been only one Enchantress in our line since the beginning of our breeding program. Around eight hundred years ago a woman was born who was considered to be an abnormality.”

  Amanda sat down and motioned for me to sit in the chair across from her. When I sat down she continued. “The woman had the capability, that when she sang to draw the enemy out and once inside a certain radius. The enemy would be frozen in place, which allowed the fighters of that time to kill anyone who showed the sign of being fed on by the Artillians. The one problem is that the people who had been cleansed so to say were basically a shell of what they had been before. There was at that point in time no tribe member with the mind healing powers I possess and thus the effected had to be killed.”

  “Ok I can see where she has displayed that capability but the side effects when she gets angry seems to be bursts of non directional energy. Can she be trained to direct at certain targets?”

  Amanda pursed her lips and shrugged. “I won’t know until I work with Jenna for a while. My main problem right now is trying to control her abilities. There is somewhere in our history a description on how we need to be trained to resist the call of an Enchantress. It has not been a part of the training program for three hundred years. There was no need for the training, since we never saw another enchantress, until now”

  I thought for a moment and said. “We will be trained now, since it seems we have one. I will work with Jenna for the time being to start her in the basics. We must discover what all of her abilities are.”

  “Do you think you can shield yourself from her?” Amanda inquired.

  “Yes I am sure of this. She has no training and she is not as powerful as Jason is. She may grow and be more powerful in the future as she progresses in the training program. I think we need to call in a Mind Mentor from Barmin.”

  “Well you can do that but you know it will be a few months before they could get here.” Amanda pointed out.

  “I can advance her far enough in that time, until Mind Mentor can work with her.” I glanced at my watch and continued. “Jenna will be out for a few hours so you might as well go to the rest of the council. Deliver the news of our discovery, and have them research the archives for the proper training to resist the call of an Enchantress.”

  Amanda got up and walked over to me. She bent and kissed me. “Ok you old fool. You work with Jenna for now I will talk with the council.”

  I watched as she walked toward the door, but before she opened it my question stopped her. “What was the name of this woman who was the Enchantress?”

  Amanda turned slowly and smiled at me. “Kate White-feather. Yes the abilities were in my bloodline not yours.”

  “I kind of figured that. You line tends to have the exotic talents in it. Look at your mother Cara.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. I am going to have to get Mother down here to take a reading on Jenna. Maybe we can get an idea on how to proceed.

  “This sounds like a good idea.” I smiled at her and watched her leave the room. After she left I sat deep in thought while I waited for Jenna to come out of the unconscious state the medicine had induced.

  I sat there and thought about how to proceed with Jenna’s training. She needed an active protection with her and I could only think of one person who would fit the part. Ricky showed the ability to imitate the aggressive traits of various animals. While he has not transformed yet I believed the ability was still in him. The Council of the Barmins agreed with me. I would also ask for a Mind Mentor for Ricky too.

  Ricky and Jenna would make a formidable team. I reached in my back pocket and pulled out the transmitter device that Hirtal had brought from Origan the last time he came.”Hirtal can you read this signal?

  “Yes Mr. White I am receiving clear. What can I do for you.” The voice over the com unit replied.

  “I need two Mind Mentors from the home planet. One for an Enchantress and one for a Shape Shifter.” I requested.“

  “Did you say an Enchantress!” Hirtal exclaimed over the unit. “We haven’t seen that aberrant in eight hundred years.”

  “I know, my wife recently informed me in a rather forceful manner.” I replied.

  The distinct chuckle of a Barmen came over the com unit. “Were any articles of furniture involved in the discussion?”

  I laughed and replied. “No this time there were no desks involved in the discussion. Possibly due to the fact we are in a hospital room and the bed is bolted to the floor to prevent thieves from stealing it.”

  “Okay I will call the home world and send the requests along.” Hirtal informed me.

  “Thank you, I will call you later tonight.” I closed the device and looked at it. This would be something handy for the general
public but the Barmins had strict conditions in the treaty forbidding such things from being done. There was the clause about the chosen one.... No never mind that.

  I turned my attention back to Jenna and noticed she was beginning to stir. I walked back into the room and waited for her to open her eyes. She had to wake up on her own because with what I dosed her with, if I woke her forcibly she would become violent again.

  I moved a chair to the door of the bathroom and waited for Jenna to wake up. When I looked at her I could see her mother in her clearly. Kira was so evident in the features of Jenna, it was almost like my daughter was still alive and with me. I choked up at this thought. Even this long after her death I still haven’t gotten used to her being gone.

  Jenna groaned on the floor and I was at her side. She opened her eyes, looked at me and smiled when she recognized me. I shielded myself and focused soothing thoughts into her mind. “Time to rejoin us in the conscious world Jenna.”

  “What happened Gramps? Why am I laying on the floor.” She implored.

  “Well you are still processing the past occurrences and one aspect was not at all agreeable with you and I had to restrain you from harming anyone.” I responded.

  She sat up and looked me squared in the eye. “What did I do and how could I do it.”

  I began by telling her of our work together with the Barmins. How selected members of the tribe many thousand years ago were taken to Origan to be trained in the matters of the mind. Once I completed the story, including Jason’s roll in the scheme of things, she looked at me with doubt in her eyes.

  “You mean Jason can do all that? Why didn’t he protect his family with his fancy talents then?” She asked. “He could have saved Mom.”

  “Honey, Jason is just developing and finding out what he can do. I brought him onto the reservation just for that purpose and you would have followed a year later. We did not expect that dog to do what he did. We would have taken all of you away from that place, including your mother.” The agony she was feeling over the loss of her mother was the same I felt when I had first heard that Kira had been killed.

  Tears were still dripping from Jenna’s eyes when she said. “I just don’t understand it. If these Barmin you are working with can foresee people of the future, how come they missed seeing that my mother would be killed?”

  “It’s not an exact science love, we can predict general items in the timeline but not exact occurrences. Another thing you should remember your biological father was not the one chosen as the next male in the line. All five of you children were something that the program did not predict at all. We are beyond joy that we have you but your generation was not expected at this time. According to the timeline set up by the Barmins, Jason, with all of his abilities, was not expected for another two hundred years.” I hoped my explanation would calm her down.

  Jenna huffed in what appeared to be defiance. “So we are all freaks of nature. We are something they did not want in their precious plan and now that we are here they are basically scrambling to save their precious breeding program.”

  I hesitated in my reply, because part of what she was saying was true. I never expected to be the one training the person who was considered to be humanities salvation and I certainly did not expect to be responsible for the training of an Enchantress. Hell I did not know what an Enchantress was, until my wife had informed me this morning. “Sweetheart, I never want to hear you refer to yourself as freaks again.” She nodded at me and I continued, “Granted you were not expected at this time but everyone, including the Barmin, are overjoyed that all of you are here. Finally a war, which we have been fighting for thousands of years, can be turned to our advantage.”

  She appeared to be calming down. At least the lights were not flickering as often as they had been. She looked me square in the eyes and asked me, “Gramps, am I...? What did I do to Mimi? What happened when I got angry in the bathroom?”

  I sighed and motioned for her to follow me in the next room. Once there I held out a chair for her to sit in. Then I sat across from her at the table. I took her hands in mine and held them. “Honey, Your grandmother has identified you as an Enchantress. There has only been one other in the timeline since the breeding program began. What an Enchantress can do is, through song, she draws the enemy in from great distances and once they reach a certain distance from the Enchantress they basically are frozen in place.”

  Jenna was listening to me with an apparent sign of deep interest as I continued. “When the first Enchantress was discovered, our line did not have someone like your grandmother. Mimi has the capability to heal minds after a human has been fed on. Now granted she is unable to restore completely what has been taken, but she can restore a human about fifty percent of the time to a state they can live a normal life. Back when the first Enchantress was discovered all we could do was draw out the evil and kill it and afterward we would dispose of the empty husk.”

  “That terrible!” Jenna said. “We need to find a way to help these poor people.”

  “We have been hoping that one of you five kids has the capability to do what Mimi cannot right now. We will just have to wait to see how the twins develop.” I replied.

  “What about Ricky?” She asked me.

  “Ricky is a pure fighter. We believe he can morph into any animal he chooses, although he has not done so yet. He can also tell if a person is lying or not.” I heard a knock at the door to the hospital suite we were in and called. “Come in, it’s unlocked.”

  The door opened and Ricky stood there. Jenna jumped up and ran to her younger brother. When she reached him she hugged him with all her might. “Ricky! Oh how I have missed you.”

  Although Ricky was just twelve, he stood taller than his sister and the time he had spent working on his uncles farm the past four years showed by his well developed muscles. He stroked his sister’s hair and said,

  “Welcome back to us Jenna we have missed you and he grabbed her in a hug.”

  “Ummpf... Air.... Can’t breathe.....” Jenna managed to gasp out.

  “Oh, sorry sis.” Ricky said before turning red in embarrassment, “Sometimes I forget my own strength.” He turned to me and said, “Grandfather, it has been a while since I have seen you how are you doing?”

  “Fine son. Why don’t you shut the door and join us at this table. I have some things I am going to tell the both of you. You cannot repeat it outside of the circle of we three and your grandmother.” I waited for them to sit down and nod before continuing. “ Your older brother will be marrying soon. Ricky you will be a part of the ceremony, but unfortunately Jenna, until you can gain control over your talents, you will not.”

  Jenna looked sad but she accepted my statement. “After the Ceremony,” I continued. “Jason and Katie will be going to the Niagara Falls, where we believe our enemies will make an attempt on Katie’s life. Jason will prevent Katie from being hurt and will kill the perpetrator.”

  “When they return here they will find the house, which Katie’s father is building for them, half finished. After this we will wait until the day that Katie announces to Jason she is pregnant.” I looked at my two grandchildren and noted that they both were listening intensely. “This is a critical point in the timeline now. Jason will be made to believe that the attempt on Katie’s life was successful..”

  “But why Grandfather?” Ricky asked.

  “Because we need to get Jason out of the United States before it completely falls into the hands of the enemies.” I replied.

  “You mean we are going to lose to the enemy here?” Jenna asked with a shocked look on her face.

  “For the time being yes. There has been an unexpected development in the enemies tactics. They are no longer draining the souls of the victim, but have begun to merge with them and feed over an extended period of time.” I looked at both of them and noted they were both focused on the conversation. “Granted there are only a certain number of the enemy who are capable of doing this. They are a merged b
eing consisting of the Artillians and an unknown entity. Some on the council believe that the Artillians found a similar race as theirs and are now working with them. Others believe that the unknown may be members of the Barmin race but we cannot be sure until we get one of them in our hands.”

  “So why don’t we fight them before they take over this country?” Ricky asked with a perplexed look on his face.

  “I will get to that in a moment Ricky. The most brutal of these merged entities is known as Xilis and he has taken over the President. “ Both of my grandchildren jumped to their feet and I waved for them to sit and let me continue. “None of us including Jason are strong enough to face Xilis right now. So we have to manipulate things to get Jason out of the country before things happen here. Knowing Jason’s mentality like I do, I assume he will break out of the institution we place him in and join some military organization. He will need a few years on his own away from this fight to develop his talents and strengthen them. You two have a part to play in all this also.”

  “But how Gramps? I just discovered today that I even have talent and you told my yourself that Ricky is developing his also.” Jenna asked.

  “Here is what is going to happen. You both will be staying at your Aunt Sue’s place. Ricky has been there since your mother passed. The twins will be moved to your uncle Franks place in Manitoba. Here your training will be guided by Aunt Sue, Mimi and your Great Grandmother Cara. Ricky I will continue with your training along with your uncle Terry who has been helping you so far.”

  “Fine,” Ricky said “But what do we do about losing over here? If it’s going to happen the way you say we don’t stand a chance in surviving.”

  “Oh you will survive. When this happens over here you will be working with Katie’s father, who will be head of the underground rebels we will be forming. Eventually Ricky you will be joining Jason in Europe, where he will end up eventually. Jenna will be strong enough by then to work with Sue and other members of the tribe to keep the movement here alive until Jason can turn his attention to this area.” I looked from one grandchild to another and gave them time to think before asking. “Are you both with the program?”