Lycan Fallout 5

by Mark Tufo

  “But wouldn’t that just be small, bittersweet moments interspersed among much greater, lonely periods when they are off doing their own thing?”

  “For the Michael living any particular existence, all lines seem completely unbroken.”

  “I always wondered how that would work. They say you are reunited with your loved ones when you die, but what if you have two, very special, individual loves? Or more? That could get awkward real quick, but if I’m getting this right, there will be one of me with Tracy and one of me with Azile?”

  “Two unique lives, one consciousness.”

  “How is this place not a cluster of jealousy and a thousand other not so wonderful emotions?”

  “There exists a true peace here, a harmony with all. I am able to achieve in my home what I could not on earth: complete happiness. There is a side-effect I had not been expecting, though.” He looked pensive.

  “Side-effect? Those are never good, usually revolve around the inability to speak, devil horns…sorry…yellow eyes; I even remember something about spontaneous combustion occurring.”

  “Nothing like that.” Maker smiled. “Except possibly the combustion.”

  “Really? Oh, Maker’s got jokes now! Good one.” I maybe should have thought it surreal that I fist-bumped God, but it felt like one of the most natural things I could do.

  “Dogs. I had not factored them in correctly.”

  “Dogs?” My heart raced. I had been the caretaker to so many of the wonderful animals in my lifetime; what possible side-effect could they present?

  “The dogs will follow in every timeline, eternally.”

  “Which dogs?” I asked.

  “All of them.”

  “So, I will have a pack of my furry friends with me forever?” It came out as more of a sob. “Henry my wonder bully?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oggie, when it’s his time?”

  “Yes.”

  “My sweet, sweet Riley?”

  “Of course.”

  “This is amazing.” I took a minute to think on them all. There was the lovable Bassett Hound, Kali; the spastastic Ben-Ben; the noble English Bulldog, George; my childhood friend, Dusty. I thought of the heroic Bear, who had saved my family and me, and so many others. I could not contain myself. I sobbed with the remembrance of them all. The pain I had felt with each loss combined freshly with the unbridled joy that they would all be back, or that finally I was back. “I think I’m going to like it here. Dog-topia!”

  Maker smiled sadly. “There is just one more thing.”

  Chapter 32

  Azile And Eliza

  “No!” Azile screamed. She had blood all over her. She ran desperately toward Michael and Eliza, looking on in terror as the knife Eliza wielded became a blur of silver, glinting firelight as it rose and fell with a speed that shouldn’t have been possible. Stonemar had shoved her away, but it was too late. The damage had been done. Michael was bleeding out from dozens of wounds. Kalandar grabbed the vampire by the hair and wrenched her up from where she lay, a full clutch of hair gripped in his hand.

  “I’ll kill you!” Azile was yelling as she got to her fallen husband. Eliza looked at the group. With her task accomplished, she reached into her pocket, pulled free the keystone, and escaped the demon’s grip, leaving a disturbing trail of laughter behind her.

  “Kalandar, please put that in this bag,” Azile said. As she stood, the witch’s tears sizzled away off her cheek from the anger that poured forth.

  Kalandar looked down at his hand and the black locks of hair contained in his still closed fist. He did as she asked.

  “I am going to miss Michael and…the little one,” Kalandar choked out as he handed Azile the bag back. She spent the rest of the day cleaning his wounds and saying her goodbyes before burying him. She’d thought about doing a protective spell, but Eliza had left little chance this body could ever be inhabited again. Her beloved was nearly beheaded.

  The next few days were a blur. Word had been sent to Lana and Mathieu, who would come as quickly as they could though they would be late for the funeral. Azile could not wait for them to show as she would lose valuable time. The ceremony was no sooner done than she had changed and grabbed a horse.

  “What are you going to do?” Kalandar asked a good majority of his body was covered in bandages.

  “I’m going to hunt her down and kill her, of course,” Azile answered.

  “Do you wish for us to go with you?” Benjamin could barely speak.

  “Not only must I do this alone, I want to. When I catch up to her I am going to do things that will make you uncomfortable; you may possibly even think less of me, witnessing it. I do not want to second guess myself in my actions.”

  They watched as she rode off. That first night, she drew a pentagram in salt and summoned a hunting and tracking spell. With great difficulty, Azile blocked out the gnarl of emotions circling inside her head. A small column of white swirled within the middle of her drawing. As one end opened wider than the rest, she reached into the bag and tossed in the hair Kalandar had gripped. The swirl intensified, turning from white to gold, then back to white as a small coil rose, winding through the top. It was slow at first, as it tentatively tested the air, looking for a scent. Once it locked on, it blazed forth in a straight line toward its target.

  “Got you, bitch,” Azile said as she brushed away the pentagram and mounted her horse. The spider-web thin strand stretched out into the distance before her. Anger simmered brightly within as she rode on through four nights. A part of her thought she should have caught the vampire by now, but another, larger part was glad she hadn’t. She didn’t want this to be over too quickly; she needed to hold on to anger as long as she could before grief overwhelmed her. Fury burned hot; it was a fuel you could use to motivate you. Grief came buried in an avalanche of misery, making even the simplest of tasks insurmountable.

  It was coming on noon of the following day. Azile felt as if she could have traveled another three days before needing to rest; her horse didn’t feel the same way. Her long neck was bent down and she was dragging her hooves; even with Azile’s enhancements she’d gone as far as she could.

  “We’ll rest for the day.” Azile nuzzled the horse’s muzzle and removed her saddle. She gave the animal plenty of water and let her graze in the meadow they found themselves in. “How are you moving so fast and where are you going to?” Azile asked the specter she hunted as she watched her glowing filament continue to stretch off. “Even you need to rest at some point, don’t you?”

  It was day five. Azile didn’t sense that she was any closer to catching Eliza, but instead of her anger cooling down, it turned into an intense rage, fueled with frustration and resentment, that threatened to explode forth from her. She’d turned her horse loose the previous day. If Eliza didn’t rest, then neither would she. It wasn’t until she came across the abandoned ruins of Robert’s Land that she was able to think clearly enough to predict where the vampire was headed.

  “Feeling a little nostalgic, are we?” Azile asked the wind. “Now that I have guessed your destination, there’s no real sense in following at pace. She spoke some words and the line she’d created dissolved like cirrus clouds in the upper atmosphere. She knew the bit of magic she was about to perform was going to take a lot of energy from her; she could only hope that she would gain enough of a lead over Eliza to gather her strength back.

  “Whoo!” she blew out, rolled her neck, and shook her hands. “Haven’t been there in a long time.” She allowed herself one, lonely tear before she began her spell. “One foot rooted here, a body moves through air; one foot placed there, I am no longer near.” There was a whoosh of air, as if it were being sucked into a cavernous hole. Then she stepped onto Ron’s overgrown front yard. There was a loud pop, like a balloon had exploded. Sometime during the last five years, the place had finally settled down in on itself. She would have almost bet it had happened the same day he’d left for good, as if the house knew that h
e would never be back, and the only reason it had stayed standing was through Michael’s sheer force of will.

  “So many good people, gone.” Azile looked at the roof; most of the tar shingles were gone and the plywood underneath had rotted. Through one of those holes, she could see Mike’s chair, the one he had spent the majority of his life in. The seat moved and she saw a greedy rat poke its head up through the cushion, a piece of dirty batting in its mouth. She was close to breaking down, but she knew Eliza was coming; could almost feel her presence.

  “First thing I have to do is make sure you don’t pull another vanishing act.” Azile got busy making preparations. When she was done, she banished the rat and dragged the chair out into the high grass. She sat in it, doing her best to wrestle some of Mike’s residual essence from the material.

  “No wonder he was always mad. This thing isn’t comfortable at all. If you’re going to spend an eternity sitting alone, you might as well enjoy it.” She barely got the last word out before she buried her face in her hands. Her back arched as sobs so intense as to be silent coursed through her. Tears pooled in her hands and overflowed to the ground below, which gladly soaked them up. Her vision was blurry and her head throbbed when the first alarm was tripped. A beacon only she could see flew high into the air, glowing a soft, blue color.

  “I will not allow you to believe you have beaten me.” She waved her hand in front of her face; her eyes lost the puffiness and the bloodshot receded. A blue light stayed with her quarry, marking the vampire’s path as she approached. “You sure are in a rush to die,” she said.

  Eliza came through the woods quietly and stood at the front of the house, a satisfied smile on her lips. “I have won, Michael Talbot. It took much longer than I could ever have expected, but at last you are dead.”

  “You loved him…?” Azile questioned, though she knew as the words left her that she was stating a fact.

  Eliza spun. “You! What are you doing here?”

  “Don’t bother reaching for it. I have made all magic inert here for the time being. You see, I’ve learned a thing or two from recent events.”

  “All?” Eliza was moving closer.

  “Oh, my. I should have been clearer. All besides my own. What kind of witch would I be if I rendered myself defenseless?”

  “A dead one,” Eliza answered.

  “You understand. I hope this hurts.”

  Eliza looked mystified as a large root erupted from the ground and wrapped around first her left ankle, then her right, immobilizing her completely.

  “Parlor tricks?” she asked savagely, struggling to break free from the iron grip.

  Branches dipped down from the trees overhead and grabbed her slender wrists even harder, stretching her arms out wide. Azile walked in front of the captive woman.

  “What do we have here?” she asked as she removed the small leather bag from around Eliza’s neck.

  “Give it back!” she spat.

  “I don’t think that would be wise of me,” Azile said as she pulled the red stone out. “A keystone? Where does a wretch like you find a keystone? In the wrong hands, this can be a terrible power; a good thing for you I’ll hold on to it. Got a feeling if I were to let magic into this area you would disappear back to where you came from, only this time you wouldn’t have a way back.”

  Eliza looked nervous. “But you wouldn’t do that; how could you exact your revenge?”

  “And they say vampires are just ignorant blood-suckers, no better than a mosquito. But you…you have smarts.”

  “Michael is dead. Even you do not have the power to bring him back. We might come to some agreement.”

  “Oh, do tell,” Azile said as she bent down to pick up a small branch that had fallen. She placed her hands together, said a short incantation, then moved her hands apart; the stick began to straighten out and grow in length and girth until it was the size of a baseball bat.

  “We could…” Eliza started.

  Azile swung, bringing the meat of the club into Eliza’s knee cap. “We could what?” Azile asked. Eliza cried out as her patella shattered into a half dozen pieces. “I’m not hearing any suggestions; is something wrong? Does a bat have your tongue?” Azile swung again, this time breaking Eliza’s femur. The vampire sagged as much as her constraints would allow. “Now, I realize that given enough time, this will all heal, but right now, that’s gotta smart something fierce. But you can take it, right? Sure you can.”

  Eliza looked pale and her lips were awash with blood.

  “You know, I never really understood the appeal of beating someone to death,” Azile said as she brought the head of the bat in close to look at it. “That is, of course, not until today. It’s like a lightbulb went off in my head.”

  “Feels good to murder someone,” Eliza pushed out between heavy breaths. “To torment, torture, inflict…pain. Of course, it also means you are forsaken.” She let out the smallest of laughs.

  “Me, forsaken? Whatever for? I could plead the case that I had lost my mind, temporarily.” Azile brought the bat over her head and broke Eliza’s forearm. The sound of the bone breaking alarmed a family of porcupines living nearby, they chittered nervously amongst themselves.

  “Stop,” Eliza hissed, her eyes narrowed and her canines elongated.

  “I don’t think so. I’m starting to get into a groove.” Azile swung chest high, the meat of the bat struck Eliza along the breasts, she “oomphed” loudly and bent backward, her left shoulder becoming dislocated from the force. “I think we’re in this for the long haul, you and me. I’ve seen Michael take a much larger beating and survive. I’ve got to think though you haven’t been on the receiving end in quite some time. Sure, you had a rough childhood, and I pity you that.”

  “I don’t need your pity.” Eliza’s head was hanging down and blood was flowing freely from her mouth.

  “Very well. See, Michael was one of the kindest men I have ever known. He placed himself in situations that got him repeatedly hurt, because he was trying to help others, always. I don’t see that happening with you. So, I’ve got to think that this beat down is a unique experience to the vampire side of you. I’m just glad we can share it together.”

  “I’m going to take centuries to kill you when I get free. I’m going to turn your children. I see surprise; oh…you weren’t aware that I knew about them. Michael attempted to hide it…matters not. Once they are mine, we are going to feast slowly on you, sapping your very will to live.” Eliza was looking at Azile now and was pleased at first when the witch registered shock and then was confused when Azile began to laugh.

  “What part of any of this leads you to believe you are going to see the sun rise again? There is a deep satisfaction in the heavy strike of the bat, but it has been a long few days and I grow weary.” Azile tossed the bat to the ground where it once again became a harmless twig. She raised her hands, and as she did so, the branches pulled Eliza and the roots up into the air. She was spread wide, as if she’d been drawn behind four horses. “Slowly,” she told the trees, who obliged her. There was a rending sound; muscles and ligaments stretching, then the wet, squelching sound as first her shoulders then her hips began to tear.

  “NO!” she cried out as blood bloomed and bones protruded from the juncture points. Finally, the material of her clothing gave way and her headed torso fell to the ground. Her dangling arms swayed in the slight breeze; her legs fell over as if they were of no more substance than wet noodles.

  “I don’t think you can heal from that.” Azile had stepped over the fallen form and was staring down. “That has got to be some unimaginable pain; you sure are taking it well, though.”

  Eliza’s black eyes burned hatred at the other.

  “I’d leave you like this, but I’m afraid you’d find some poor, hapless victim and turn them with instructions to come after me. That part is fine–I look forward to anything you could possibly throw back at me–but you said yourself you would go straight for my children, and that is somethi
ng I cannot allow. I don’t know what you were thinking, Eliza. Did you not know I would follow you to the ends of the earth to avenge my husband?”

  “It matters not at all,” Eliza said. “He is dead. Kill me, send me back to the underworld; the satisfaction of his demise, entrenched within my thoughts, will get me through until I find another way back.”

  “This is where it gets good. Those very thoughts you speak of? I’m going to take them. I can’t make you cease to exist; alas, that is not a power granted to me. But your precious memories, those I’m taking. I’m erasing your mind. Just think; you’ll have a clean slate.”

  “You cannot!” Eliza was weakened by the loss of blood, but was able to rally one last time.

  Azile placed one red, glowing hand against Eliza’s head. There was a smell like burning plastic. Satisfied, Azile stood.

  “Who…who are you?” Eliza asked, looking up.

  “Sleep now,” Azile said as she brought her sword down upon Eliza’s neck, severing her head completely. She gathered enough wood to burn the body. When she was satisfied nothing would remain, she turned around and headed home. Most of the journey, she was focused on not much more than the tips of her boots.

  Chapter 33

  Mike Journal Entry 14

  My elation quickly faded. “One more thing” is never good, as I’ve pointed out before. It’s never: “Oh, and one more thing. You will have an unlimited supply of peanut butter M&Ms, or: “One more thing. We have outlawed ham; all eaters of ham will be rounded up and cast out of heaven.” It’s never any of those things. Except, this time it was. My eyes narrowed as I waited to hear what he had to say.

  “I owe a debt to you, Michael.”

  “That was unexpected. You may proceed,” I told him.

  “There is something I can do about your present situation.”

  “No disrespect, Maker, but I’m dead. One of my beloveds waits at the end of this train’s run.”