Garrett's Home

by Shelby Lynn

  "Chi la sono?" Who are you? Is all she heard of his snarly voice before her world went black.

  ***

  Caterina sat up in her bed abruptly. Sweat poured from her brow and her lungs burned as she gasped for air. She looked around at her surroundings, not remembering where she was at the moment. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness, and when they did, she saw that she was in her room, safe and sound.

  A thud against the window made her jump, but when she looked over, she saw it was just a tree branch hitting the glass because of the strong wind brought on by the storm. Her body shivered as the word storm entered her consciousness.

  Caterina hated storms; they always brought the memories back. She hated to remember, she always tried to push the thoughts away. It was better for her that way. But when it stormed, especially at night, her dreams would force her to relive everything all over again.

  Caterina pushed the blankets off her and swung her legs over the edge of the bed to stand. She walked into her small ensuite bathroom and went to the sink to splash her face. As the cool water hit her skin, the images in her head began to fade. Finally, after the shaking stopped, and she felt she had washed away all the sweat and tears on her face, she stood straight and took a look at herself in the mirror. She did this to remind herself that she was not that same girl five years ago.

  She was not a scared child running for her life from some horrific monster. She was safe and she was strong, thanks to the help of her best and dearest friend. She knew if she had not met him that night, she would be dead by now, or worse, a slave to that horrible man. No, not a man, but a vampire. If she had not run into his cave, she would have never been saved from the vampire's clutches. Adolfo was the very best thing that had happened to her.

  Without Adolfo, Caterina would not have lived; she would not have escaped. He kept her hidden, deeper in the cave, until the following day. Then he ran with her, to the nearest train station and acted as her body guard as they got as far from Italy as they could. They had taken a plane to America, thanks to Adolfo having money to do so. He had explained to her that he didn't live in that cave but in a house not too far away from it. That cave was on his property, and he sometimes liked to go there just to rest as his wolf. He said he had been running in the woods when the storm started and it was closer than his house, so he went into the cave to wait it out. Apparently Adolfo was well enough off, because when they got to America, he supported them as they moved from state to state.

  Caterina hated the moving, but they had to, because wherever they stopped just for a while, it seemed a vampire would turn up wanting Caterina. One time she had actually gotten an explanation from one of them before they tried to drain her and ultimately died when Adolfo ripped them to shreds. It had something to do with her blood; there was something special about it that called to them. Caterina often wished she could remove that 'special' part of her blood so the vampires would leave her alone and she could live in peace. But that wasn't possible.

  Caterina left the bathroom and crawled back into her bed. She sat there staring at the window, wondering when it would be that she and Adolfo would have to move again. She wondered why Adolfo would put up with her and go through this mess with her for so long. The vampires weren't after him; he could just walk away and never have to deal with them again. She knew it wasn't because he was in love with her. They had tried being a couple once when things were a bit more peaceful for a time. But they soon found that they were not meant to be more than friends.

  She would ask Adolfo many times why he stayed with her for so long when it would have been better for him to let her go. He would always answer, "Because you are special, Caterina. I look at you, and I see something that I have never seen before. I feel that because of you that one day life will be better for all of us, shifters and humans alike. I look at you, and I see hope."

  HeVan Sent (Book 1 of the Nephilim)

  By Lucy Kelly

  Chapter 1

  Addie Perez stumbled over some rocks and nearly wound up on her butt in an abandoned gull 's nest. When she started on this adventure, she hadn't taken in the necessity of maneuvering around so much bird crap. Even with the bird crap, she was happy to be here. Like many other places around the world, she'd been drawn to this place. It figures the closest location to where she lived would be the last one she found before finishing her dissertation. If she had to have an obsession, at least she was getting a degree out of it.

  This particular obsession began back when she was in grade school. She'd been on a sixth -grade field trip to a big museum in downtown Chicago. When she wandered past an exhibit on ancient India, it weirded her out when a symbol that had been carved on a building thousands of years ago, looked exactly like her odd birthmark. That's when she became more interested in ancient civilizations than her current obsession with growing boobs and kissing boys.

  Now here she was in graduate school and ABD for her doctorate in Archaeology. She remained a geek at heart; now, she was also a smart ass who could take care of herself. Though there were women in archaeology, it was mostly a male dominated field. Professors adored using their students as free slave labor on their digs. Days in grueling conditions in out of the way places; no amenities, just meager pay and course credit. She'd grown a thick skin with all the pompous jerks treating her as if she didn't have two brain cells in her head. She'd begun taking lessons in Aikido after another student got the idea that she was just around to keep the men happy. She chuckled at that memory—he'd been crossing his hands over his crotch for days.

  She happily put up with all their shit, because as she went further in her studies, she came across additional clues here and there to her own personal puzzle. She found small things that tied together with other things. Each time she felt drawn to an artifact or carving; something had pulled her there, and she made connections, added puzzle pieces.

  She'd tried talking to her sister Grace about it, then stopped when she told her she was nuts. Then she went back to reading the latest true-crime book or watching reality cop shows on cable. For Grace, that paid off when she'd gone straight into the police academy from high school. She'd quickly risen up the ranks and got her detective's shield a year ago. So her sister's life was well on its way, and she was still in school at twenty-five. Oomph… damn slippery bird crap!

  Today she was clambering over rocks covered in excrement in the middle of Lake Michigan because she couldn't let go of her obsession, maybe her sister was right, and she was nuts. She could have been spending two weeks slaving at a dig in Arizona for a meager stipend and academic glory, only she preferred to spend this last summer before finishing and defending her Doctoral Thesis on her personal theories. I'm re-thinking that decision right now since I'm covered in this blech!…well, if I find what I'm looking for, it'll be well worth it.

  She finally reached the top of the rocky incline from where she'd beached and tied off her pontoon boat. This particular island was quite small, so she didn't expect to find anything; she felt though that she had to be scientific and thorough and leaving no stone unturned. Addie let out a chuckle at the bad pun. It's highly unlikely I'll be turning over any of these rocks, she thought to herself—these granite puppies had been piled up here since the last glacier moved through.

  Addie walked over to a mostly clear area of wild grass to have a rest. She pulled out her water and some antiseptic wipes. She'd done a song and dance to get permission from the Michigan National Wildlife Refuge and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources in order to go over these islands for eight weeks this summer. Too bad the ranger, while signing off on her forms, didn't warn her about wading through all this shit.

  She was used to dealing with bad conditions; only on a regular dig there would be cleanup facilities, as well as the cooking, the cleaning, and other chores that were shared around.

  With so many islands, Addie needed to be mobile. She was breaking camp and setting up a new one almost daily. And that ate into her time.
Soon she was going to need to stop by Beaver for a hot shower and a fresh supply of wet wipes— she went through them fast enough.

  She'd already been to Squaw's Island; as the only privately owned island in the Beaver Island Archipelago, she shamelessly used her credentials to be allowed access for three days. Luckily, the island was small. Hopefully, the paper she promised to write about it, okay, she thought, maybe bribed the owners with was a better term, would be equally small. She'd started with the smallest island, Pismire, and was working her way up. She really hoped she'd find something before she got to Beaver Island. As the only inhabited island, it would be difficult to search without trespassing on private property, or getting shot at by a hunter after deer or wild turkey. Perhaps she could talk herself into believing the added danger made it exciting, nope, not really seeing the excitement there. If she were shot at, she'd have to make do with lording it over her sister. And then watch her flip out, which was sooo much fun!

  Grace thought she had the risky job, hah! Poisonous snakes, restless natives, even more restless governments, you try getting a dig permit in Iraq, she wanted to say. She couldn't even talk about that one because the dig had been way under the government radar, twelve weeks in native clothes and dying her red hair black, Ugh! Grace never saw her as a competent grown-up. When they were growing up, Grace was the one who proclaimed herself Addie's protector, she was the one who took care of the bullies that tried to give her a hard time. It must be because I'm still in school. When I get that PhD, maybe then she'll change…not! She'll still be running background checks on anyone that smiles at me when I'm fifty!

  Grace was her best friend, and all teasing aside, her biggest fan; although, in the last few years she became more hardened and serious. It was because of the job; as a cop, she was always faced with the worst kinds of people. You had to be tough or people walked all over you. The problem was Grace took her job home with her. Sometimes when she called, it felt more like an interrogation than a conversation.

  As she walked back and forth across the island, pushing her way through the thick brush, reminiscing about her family and how she got here, made the time go by more swiftly. She remembered when she lost her parents. Mom was surprised with a late-in-life pregnancy in her mid-forties. I was starting high school, and Gracie was starting her senior year.

  Mom had gone into labor in the middle of the night so dad was rushing her to the hospital. Some asshole closed down the bars and then decided to drive home, shit-faced, forgot to turn on his headlights, and hit them head-on.

  It still upset her when she thought about it. She stopped walking for a minute to take a drink of water from the canteen.

  It was so great of Granny and Grandpa Mac to come back to the farm to take care of them. Neither she nor Grace had wanted to farm and Grandpa…she could still hear him saying he was done with all that. So they'd sold most of the farmland to the neighbors and kept the homestead. Now Grandpa Mac was dead and Granny Mac was living in the local retirement community. Addie smiled thinking of her Granny Mac. I should have brought her with me; she's in better shape than me, doing her Wii every morning.

  Her parent's final gift, if you could call it that, was the fact that their life insurance paid off the farm, so they'd always have a home. They'd taken the settlement from the asshole's insurance and put it away for education. Between the life insurance, the settlement, and the sale of the land, she and Grace didn't need to worry about money for some time to come.

  Gracie had used her share to buy a condo on the lake, so she wouldn't have to live in a crappy apartment in the city. And here I am burning some of my share on what may be a fruitless endeavor.

  She was on Whiskey Island wishing she had a shot of the good stuff and wondering why she'd spent so much of her life trying to prove the existence of an ancient people that only she believed in. Somehow, she didn't think she'd find what she was looking for on this island either. Every time she set foot on an island, it was like she could feel if she was supposed to be there or not, and this place was not calling to her, but somewhere close was—she could feel it.

  With her vacation half over, she was going to have to decide about where she was going to go, because tromping these empty islands was starting to frustrate her. She could practically hear her fellow students telling what they had done over the break. ''Oh', I found this cool piece, and 'Ah', look at the find I'm getting credit for.' And then there was Addie. She could say, 'Oh, look at my pants and the shoes I ruined with all the bird shit, but it was ancient bird shit, I'm sure.'

  The remaining islands were larger; in four weeks, her permits were going to expire. It was time to pull out the big guns, or she was going to go down in history as the girl who found twenty tons of shit. I'm spending way too much of my life thinking about bird crap, she thought with a chuckle.

  Addie had a gift, one that she never told anyone about for fear they would laugh at her. Growing up, she had enough tormenting, she didn't need to put a bulls-eye on her back and cry, 'look at me, I can do some really freaky stuff.' No one would have believed her anyway, except for her family, and they were all that mattered to her.

  When Addie was a child, she found out that if she concentrated, she could find things. And she also discovered that she always knew when she spoke to people or found things if it was the truth, or correct, or real. She remembered being upset when she found out it wouldn't work for finding missing kids—she cried off and on for days; until Gracie finally pried what was wrong out of her and set her straight about that not being her destiny. It still bothered her that she couldn't use her gift that way. And she was still trying to work out all that she could do with it.

  She had given her gift a name; it was a girl thing, she supposed—girls named almost everything. Guys just named their cars and their penises, she thought, and laughed at the memory of her first serious boyfriend in college and his 'Mr. Happy'. So she called her gift her truth-seek, simple, yet elegant, she smiled to herself. Her sister wanted to call it a Wonder Power, like on the old cartoon—she had stood firm.

  Addie decided to try her truth-seek again; it got her to Lake Michigan and then to this group of islands. So far, though, it hadn't allowed her to narrow her search, it was as though her skill was a separate part of herself, and it decided when she received knowledge and when she didn't. Times like this it really pissed her off.

  She sat down on the ground to meditate, wishing she'd brought some sage or incense to burn. This was the method her Granny Mac had taught her. When she used the sage or incense, she could connect to her power faster and with greater depth.

  She'd been pulled to this grouping of islands—screw methodical—she needed a solid direction now! Slowly, she felt her body slipping out of her awareness. She allowed her mind to float using the shape of her birthmark as a focal point. Of course, the strange mark everyone teased her about when she was younger had to tie into her powers. Life could not be simple, she thought, though it was the birthmark that had started her off on this adventure, so it made a strange kind of sense. She concentrated on the colored swoops and lines she saw every morning in her mirror, and she allowed herself to float away.

  After about fifteen minutes, she slowly pulled out a map of the area, opened it, and put rocks down to keep it from blowing away. Then she pulled her worry stone from around her neck—another little gift from her grandmother. The once flat stone that had a concave indentation with a small hole at the center, where the women in her family had rubbed it, passed down from mother to daughter, until her grandmother had passed it to her. She said that she never felt that her daughter had need of it, and so she kept it for her. It had belonged to so many generations that its origin wasn't remembered.

  Now she swung the stone from its leather string in a circular fashion. She kept her eyes closed and concentrated on the symbol, feeling for tugs and pulls from the stone. Finally, when she felt the tug, she let go. It landed on the whiptail of Hog Island, the hole in the stone resting near a small bay
on the leeward side. She had a destination.

  She was going to have to hustle to get there before dark; it would be too dangerous to make her way around these islands then. If she had to, she'd put up for the night on Garden Island, as she'd have to go around it to get to Hog Island from where she was. Part of her wondered why the truth-seek didn't narrow her search earlier? Oh well, time to ponder that later; she needed to get going now. Within twenty minutes, she'd loaded her boat, topped off the gas tank in the outboard motor, and taken off.

  Black Wolf Agency:

  To Live and To Love

  Prologue

  "I can't believe what I just saw," said James, still in shock and overwhelmed. Granted, he was sitting in his apartment by himself talking to himself, and could possibly be dreaming, he hadn't figure d that out yet. He kept replaying the memory of what had just happened…

  ***

  Just thirty minutes earlier, he was walking home from his accounting job; boring, yes, but still lucrative. He left work around sunset that day, thinking the whole time he needed to find some excitement in his life, something besides numbers.

  He was anxious to get home and have something to eat, so he took a short cut he normally avoided when he was walking that took him through a few small, less-used alleys that were run-down and smelled of garbage.

  James was not a small man, at least for a geek, he tried to keep himself in shape, so he felt comfortable walking though the alleys. He could take care of himself; he, of course, had taken a class in Tae Kwan Do, James was sure if he ever had to use it, he could kick some ass. His hair was brown and short, kinda messy, but he liked it, it gave him an edge. His eyes were brown, they matched his hair. But the thing he liked the most was his height and build, he was built like a linebacker and tall. Well, when he kept in shape, these days he looked like a third string football player who ate too much take out.