by Matt Rogers
Chapter 21
The island was unlike anything they’d ever experienced. Its isolation off the mainland allowed it to remain almost pristine with incredible views of majestic mountains and wildlife flourishing everywhere. They’d been met at the airport by the Mistress of the island. The plane was a loner, given as a courtesy to the Matriarch of Third Clan and Melissa stepped off to greet her curious host as Johnny and the child remained on board.
“Mistress Melissa, welcome to Kodiak” the woman of exotic beauty said upon encountering the Vampire of myth.
“Hello, you must be Mistress Nadia” Melissa replied and the Matriarch of Wind family nodded she was.
They’d left the Beech family for they had more to accomplish if their plan was to work. The Winds were informed they were on the way by Victoria Beech herself because they were also part of the same tribe. Victoria’s family ruled the Food Tribe but not far behind were the Winds.
“Are the others on board?” the woman of Asian heritage asked and Melissa nodded they were.
It was always necessary to prepare for new encounters. Melissa had no way of knowing how the Wind’s Wolves would react when they encountered one they knew to be Superior but smelled of Inferiority.
“You have left your mate at home?” Melissa inquired.
“Yes, I felt I should come first and prepare him for the experience” Nadia replied.
It was not a common event for Vampire to travel without her escort but on Kodiak things were run a little differently. The island was located off the southern shore of Alaska and was inhabited by only one Superior family. The reasoning was simple. The population was too small to handle more than one family. It wasn’t Humans they were worried about, far from it, they interacted with them every day and were on very good terms. The problem was the wildlife. Kodiak was full of animals, all animals of every shape and size but it had one which was unique, one which was desired by all Wolves; the Kodiak bear. The bear was actually an oversized Grizzly which was lucky enough to have been born on an island with such an amazing amount of food. It allowed the bears to grow so big they became the second largest in the world behind their Polar cousins. Fruits, berries and salmon were the mainstays of the bear’s diet and were enough to allow the Kodiaks to reach heights of twelve feet and weigh over half a ton. They were the apex predators in the animal world and were top prizes for Human hunters everywhere. They were also the perfect challenge for Werewolves in wrestling matches.
“Thank you for meeting me on such short notice. I must warn you the shock of what is about to occur can be a little unsettling but it is not dangerous” Melissa said.
The Mistress of Kodiak Island merely nodded again but by the look in her eye Melissa could tell she was curious to feel what others had only read about.
“Now, if you would humor me, I would like to try something” Melissa asked.
“Of course, Mistress, your word is law here” the other responded according to tradition.
The Matriarch who held higher office was in charge when visiting one of lower status. It didn’t matter Nadia Wind was the head Vamp on the island because when Melissa landed her authority arrived also.
“Thank you Mistress. First, I would like us to end the formalities. I am Melissa and you are Nadia, okay?”
She didn’t need to ask, it was done to promote good will. It served its purpose for the lesser Vamp smiled in agreement.
“Good, the second thing I would like you to do is tell me the exact moment you lose my scent.”
The confusing look on Nadia’s face prompted Melissa to explain.
“We are trying to determine the distance of cloaking powers. Right now you can sense me because my Cloak is in the plane. I would like to know how far my mate’s abilities extend.”
“And you need me to tell you when I lose your scent?” Nadia asked, Melissa nodded and both agreed to proceed.
Melissa raised her hand and beckoned Johnny to emerge. He’d been watching at the window for her signal. The plane was on the tarmac in a cordoned-off area and Melissa waited with Nadia about one-hundred meters away. He stood at the top of the stairs and halted.
“I can still sense you” the smaller Vamp said and Melissa indicated Johnny should move closer. They were doing it in five meter intervals so Johnny walked down the twin-engine plane’s ramp.
“You’re still with me” Nadia said with a grin.
Melissa grinned back for she had a good feeling about the Vampire from the north. Nadia had a way about her which was contagious. Her smile was such when others encountered it they immediately replied in kind. It was said even her victims were found grinning from ear to ear though their heads were no longer attached.
They were making steady but slow progress. Johnny had traveled half the distance but Nadia could still sense the presence of Melissa even without looking at her. Johnny was about to move again at Melissa’s bidding when things changed in a dramatic way. She heard the intake of breath before the words.
“I’ve lost you.”
It wasn’t the way she said the words, although there was definitely a small amount of wonder every time it happened, it was the actions preceding Nadia’s proclamation; none had taken place. Johnny’s feet were still in the same location for he hadn’t moved. One instant Nadia could detect Melissa and the next she couldn’t. The problem was nothing had altered between the time intervals. The wind hadn’t changed, nothing had come between them but still the reaction of the northern Vampire was the same as all the others; at a certain distance a chord was cut and their ability to scent those bonded to Johnny was severed. It was that distance Melissa was trying to determine but now she had a dilemma. Maybe it wasn’t distance after all? Maybe it was something else altogether? If Nadia’s sense was abruptly eliminated and Johnny had not moved then maybe distance wasn’t the variable she thought it to be? Then she saw the answer.
“Daemon” she said to herself as she noticed the head of the small child peering around the corner out the plane’s doorway. Only his head was visible and when he saw her notice him he disappeared in Vampire fashion but the facts were there, she’d seen him with her own eyes.
“Melissa?” she heard Nadia say.
“Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
She wasn’t sure. She knew the child was something different but what was happening was leaving her a bit breathless. The savior of their species was growing in powers they hadn’t believed possible. She was the Matriarch, though, and it had been her idea so she regained her composure.
“Yes, Nadia, I’m fine. The better question is, how are you?”
She watched as the Vampire searched for the words.
“I’m okay. You are right, the sensation is rather abrupt and quite disturbing. It is as though my brain and my heart are at odds with one another. I know who you are intellectually but at a deeper level I feel nothing. It is as if part of you vanished although I can see clearly you haven’t.”
Melissa nodded and accepted the explanation. She’d heard so many different forms of the same version she was becoming an expert on opaque and vaguely similar descriptions.
“Mistress Nadia, may I present my mate, Johnny Johnson, Alpha Wolf of Third Clan.”
Nadia had a hard time not laughing out loud. Johnny was the last thing she would’ve pictured as the strongest Wolf. He was average height, average weight and average in looks. He also held the smell all lesser beings possessed and if the proof of his actual identity were not standing directly beside her she would’ve killed the man who claimed to be Wolf out of principle alone.
“Hello, Wolf Johnson, welcome to my island” she replied instead.
Johnny, for his part, was curious. He’d been aware Melissa had gone from scented to unscented for he’d been watching the whole time. He’d seen the reaction of Nadia and also the look on his half-sister’s face when the situation had changed. He didn’t know what had caused her to look over his shoulder but had a pretty good idea it involved a baby Wo
lf with a curiosity disorder. He reminded himself to get the facts from her when they were alone. They didn’t mistrust the Winds but they also weren’t going to give out any more information on the child than what was deemed appropriate. The Beach family were head of Food Tribe, a leading family at the top of the economic hierarchy and were thus entrusted with information about Daemon others lower on the rung would not. It wasn’t because they feared the others would run out and tell the world but mistakes could happen and the less who knew of the child’s true calling the safer it was the preferred outcome would occur.
“Is this the child who produced so much change?” Nadia asked after Melissa had indicated with a wave Daemon should join them on the tarmac. He literally jumped out the door and landed nine feet lower without breaking stride. Wolves were acrobats of incredible design.
“Yep, this is the little tiger” Johnny answered as the child joined them.
Daemon had been the catalyst for Melissa to take control of Third. He’d been presented as heir to Lucifer after being sired by Stephanie who then challenged her sister, Isabella, for the hand of the Alpha Wolf governing Shelter Tribe. A contest occurred and Stephanie won. Stephanie became Lucifer’s mate and thus Shelter Tribe’s Matriarch but she had a problem; she’d previously been mated to Johnny. It turned out the ceremony had a flaw but at the time no one knew so Johnny and his family, the LeTorque, challenged Lucifer and his family, the Satan, to combat. The LeTorque won and Daemon lost one sire. The problem with the mating ceremony between Johnny and Stephanie was discovered and Johnny chose Melissa, his half-sister, over Stephanie, his aunt, as his mate. The two Wolves of LeTorque ceded their authority to Johnny who then became Alpha Wolf of Shelter Tribe making Melissa the Matriarch. Melissa challenged for full Matriarch of the entire clan and was awarded the honor because she’d been responsible for combining the three areas of employment so valued by the clans under one roof; a private-public prison pumping petroleum employing convicted labor to perform the service. With control obtained the need for Stephanie waned and the greatest little Wolf ever created lost his other sire.
Nadia looked closely at the young Wolf and was amazed at what she felt; both nothing and everything at once. It was as if two equally opposing forces of matching strength were fighting each other. They did indeed cancel the other out leaving her to view the boy as Inferior but not before she had the overwhelming sense she was in the presence of something new.
“Hello, Daemon, my name is Nadia” she said with a smile.
Her smile did as it was intended, the child replied and she knew she was right. No amount of interference could restrain the joy in her heart as she realized the boy was much more than a tiger; he was Wolf.
The ride to the Wind Wharf was one of incredible tranquility. Their waterfront Estate was a wonder to behold. It backed up to their warehouse which was used to process, clean, package and ship the amazing variety of seafood the family fished off the waters in the Arctic. Fish, Johnny learned from Nadia as they traveled the two-lane road to the marina district were actually more prevalent in cold water than warm. In fact it was estimated the greatest amount of life-forms on the entire Earth were present in the frigid waters between Alaska and her one-time parent country, Russia. Johnny was having a hard time grasping she might be right but since he had absolutely no interest or knowledge of marine life he opted to believe her. Besides, she was adorably cute and had such an amazing personality he would’ve agreed with her if she stated the moon was made of butter. They arrived at the waterway and strolled along the vast number of piers which sat empty as the ships who would later dock with them were busy trying to even out the number of species in their waters with the rest of the planet.
“Uncle, Johnny?”
“Yes, Daemon?”
“How do boats float?”
The child was quickly becoming a nuisance so Johnny did the smart thing.
“Ask Aunt Melissa.”
While the inquisitive baby Werewolf peppered the patient adult Vampire with more questions than a Jeopardy judge could devise Johnny began to glance around at the activity present on the long wooden piers jutting out into the chilly waters. It was summertime so he was relatively warm but even with the sun directly overhead he could feel the mist from the seawater and surmised swimming in the largest bathtub on Earth was not something he wished to experience. Some action caught his eye and he went to investigate.
The end of the pier was a good thirty meters out and at the edge a man sat on an overturned plastic bucket while simultaneously pulling a rope from the water. Johnny approached and stopped about ten feet away.
“Are you just going to stand there or you going to help with the rope?” he heard the man ask the ocean without turning around.
He wasn’t sure if it was he the man was talking to but they were the only ones he could see on the end of the pier. Still, then again, maybe the man was some kind of fish savant who could speak with the slimy salt-water breathers? Maybe he was a crazy loon who talked to the air instead of solid things? Maybe he was…?
“Hey! Are you going to help or just stand there insulting me behind my back?”
“Oh, crap! Did I say that out loud?”
“Yes, and I’ve never heard of no fish savant so if you want to share my pier you’d best get your skinny butt over hear and help me with this rope.”
Johnny Johnson was many things. He was both the weakest and strongest Wolf in the clan, the Alpha of the clan, the mate to the Matriarch, the uncle to the answer to the meaning of life, the twin brother to the greatest Wolf ever sired if Daemon didn’t pan out, the prodigy to the second greatest Wolf ever know if again the Daemon thing didn’t succeed and also the all-time, longest surviving coward the Heavens had ever produced.
“Yes, sir! Sorry about that. Sometimes I speak when I don’t know I’m doing it” Johnny said by way of apology as he walked up and stood next to the stranger.
The man was old. He looked a hundred with white hair, beard and wind-burnt skin. He wore the coverings of a mountain-man, at least what Johnny thought a man of the mountains might don. He was adorned in blue-jean pants, corduroy top and a pair of the oldest, most worn-down boots Johnny had ever seen. The rope the man was pulling up was twine, worn brown through either natural color or sea discoloration. Johnny could not tell which for he knew nothing of string products. It was thick, about one-half inch if Johnny were to judge but once again he was no expert on rope and it could’ve been anywhere on the circumference spectrum.
“Are you just going to stand there?” the man said over his right shoulder.
“Um… no. What do you want me to do?”
“Take the excess rope I’m pulling up and coil it into a nice pile just like I’ve been doing. Do you think you can do that?”
Johnny looked to where the man pointed and sure enough there was a nice uniform coil of rope where the man, as he pulled up the rope, had been placing it in a tidy circle to be used for later rope-pulling-up events.
“Yes, sir, I think I can accomplish that” Johnny said and began doing exactly as he promised.
The only problem he had was once he began helping the man began moving faster. Johnny would coil his rope and place it over the previously coiled rope but after a short period of time he realized he was falling behind. His rope was beginning to mess with him. He’d be coiling and before he set his rope down more would appear and before he knew it his rope was all over the place. He was going to tell the over-eager rope-puller to ease up on his enthusiasm when all of a sudden the thing the rope was attached to arose from the water it was previously submerged in.
“All right, give me a hand” the man said.
Johnny wasn’t exactly sure what to do. He already had his hands full of rope and was desperately trying to catch up with the mystifiably fast string-hauler-upper so he stood there for a second unsure how to respond.
“Hey, get your scrawny tail over here!” the man yelled which caused Johnny’s un-sureness to disappear.
He moved to stand beside the man and looked down over the pier to see what it was they were pulling up. What he saw was a huge net and inside the net was a thing. He didn’t know what the thing was for the lining of the net obscured its body but he was positive of one thing; whatever was caught was pretty darn big.
“What’s in there?” he asked.
“Don’t know yet. Let’s find out” was the reply.
The man counted to three and they hauled the net onto the pier. The man tugged on the lining to open the top and out came one of the meanest looking creatures Johnny had ever seen.
“Holy…!”
King Crabs, Johnny thought later, were possibly the cause of nightmares. They were water-dwelling, armored, gigantic spiders with menacing claws. They grew to the size of living room bean-bags and were definitely in the running for the ugliest species in the universe. They had beady eyes, sharp points on their hardened shells and a dislike of open air. The one the man pulled in was three feet from the water and intent on escape. It’s only problem? Between it and freedom stood Johnny.
It eyeballed Johnny with two black orbs, skittered left on its pointy legs, skittered right and raised its enormous left claw as if to strike. Johnny, paralyzed with fear merely stood there, unable to move as he saw death by crustation confront him on a wooden pier in the far north seas. He’d traveled the world, seen a lot of strange things but never something as horribly terrifying as the ocean-bred orange arachnid squaring off with him at the water’s edge. A lot of things ran through his mind. Would he ever see his brother again? Who would be the ultimate victor, Heaven or Hell? Was Daemon actually the chosen one? But one thought, one strange question also kept intruding. Where could one find restaurants which served King Crabs? He’d had crab legs before, he knew they were tasty but was also aware of another small detail which made their tastiness somewhat less appealing; the effort to get the sumptuous meat was greater than the pleasure of digesting the food. He thought obese people should eat solely crab legs for he figured if weight loss was the result of using more calories than one ate then crab legs were the perfect answer. By the time they broke though the shell and dug the annoyingly small amount of sea-spider muscle from the thing he surmised the gross gain would be a net loss on the caloric expenditure scale. All those things ran through his mind in the fleeting instant he had before the thing decided to do the one thing Johnny could not tolerate. It moved directly toward him.
The funny thing about King Crabs, as Johnny learned later, was while they may appear tough to tackle they actually had a rather large Achilles Heel; they could not do anything if picked up from behind. So as Johnny jumped into the icy-cold waters off the coast of Kodiak the last thing he saw before entering the freezing liquid was the old man holding aloft what would later become the dinner of dozens smothered in melted butter served over a pile of pilaf.
“Uncle Johnny?”
“Yes, Daemon?”
“Why is the ocean salty?”
The kid was definitely annoying. Unfortunately, his annoyance came not from his constant questioning but from the way he put the question because he was intolerably polite. Johnny had not known politeness could be an irritating behavior until he’d taught it to Daemon. The child would look up at him with his big blue eyes and ask in the most innocent of ways a question which a Nobel Laureate would find confounding.
“If you’re on a spaceship traveling the speed of light and walk down the aisle aren’t you moving faster than light?”
Johnny didn’t particularly enjoy conversing with Daemon for he felt the need to further educate himself after every visit.
“If all planets have gravity wouldn’t they eventually collide?”
He generally left it to Melissa the duty of question-answering because he didn’t like fibbing to a child but wasn’t exactly enthused about answering ‘I don’t know?’ a million times a day to the baby Wolf.
“If everything came from the ocean why would we un-evolve gills?”
It wasn’t that Johnny was stupid, it was the fact the child asked the strangest of questions.
”Why do doctors and lawyers use Latin?”
“Why don’t people from Latin America speak Latin?”
“If people from America are Americans and people from Africa are Africans why aren’t people from China called Chinans?”
The really frustrating part was the child was so infuriatingly well-mannered. If he’d been a pest, a little too obnoxious, then Johnny could’ve yelled at the boy to keep quiet for a while and then snuck away so Melissa could do the heavy lifting of answering people perplexity but he couldn’t because Daemon was the last thing from a pest. He’d wait until just the right time arrived and then proceed to confuse Johnny with subjects he didn’t even know were in question.
They were sitting around the table in the Wind Estate waiting for the Wolves to arrive when Daemon finally asked a question Johnny felt knowledgeable enough to answer.
“Uncle Johnny?”
“Yes, Daemon?”
“Why do people watch reality TV programs?”
“Because they like to watch other people make fools of themselves.”
Daemon asked the question because on the television in the living room was a program which was being viewed by millions of eyes throughout the world including two pair who were sitting on the sofa in front of the set in raptured entertainment.
“Ooh, I love this show!”
“Me too!”
The lovely eyes belonged to the two Vampires who’d run to the room the minute the program began.
“Look at her! Ooh, I hate her!”
“Me too!”
Johnny and Daemon got up from the table to join the pair of vivacious Vamps viewing virtual reality programming already in session.
“Who’s that?” Johnny asked as a man’s face loomed in the picture set.
“That’s Adam Saint Scott” Nadia answered.
The screen changed and a new face appeared.
“Who’s that?” Daemon asked.
“That’s Jennifer Sprig, dearie, we don’t like her” replied Melissa.
The camera zoomed back and a whole slew of women could be seen in the background.
“What’s this show called again?” Johnny inquired.
“The Butcherette.”
Reality shows had been testing the market for some time. They’d been ever increasingly pushing the envelope of human desire for fame and fortune without effort or ability and had finally come to the only logical outcome for shows dedicated to the promotion of self-gratification. The two themes had been tried before; relationship building and physical-appearance alteration. ‘The Butcherette’ phased two into one.
“Why are their mouths so puffy?”
“They had them done for this round. It’s the ‘Up-Lip-ting’ segment.”
The show was actually the culmination of many years of public-aversion management. It had been tabled before because the audience hadn’t been primed for its production, they hadn’t been acclimatized enough to handle its premise but over time revulsion receded as prurient interests increased and the result was every man’s daydream come to life.
“What’s he doing now?”
“He’s handing out the next segment’s assignment. Whoever gets a gift stays in and whoever doesn’t goes home.”
The man on the screen, Adam Saint Scott, took his time doling out the goodies because the show was wildly popular but difficult to fill for an hour. It lasted sixty minutes because the producer had previously done reality television and knew their shelf life lasted about as long as countered cheese. Audiences were fickle when it came to public humiliation and would rapidly leave when another more titillating program arrived just down the dial so he bilked the advertisers for all they were worth while his currently top-of-the-ratings narcissism game was in money-making mode.
“Oh, thank God!” Melissa said.
“Yay!” Nadia yelled.
“What? What happened?” Jo
hnny asked.
The show was simple. Twenty women plied for one man’s heart. The twist came in the challenges.
“He didn’t give Jennifer an assignment” Melissa answered.
“So?”
“So, it means she’s out. She doesn’t go on.”
The challenges were never aired for even though the viewing public had been previously primed and prepped for participation in peeping for pleasure the content was considered a bit too controversial for commercial consumption and thus censored for civilized society’s sake.
“Does she get a consolation prize?” Johnny asked.
“Oh yeah. She gets to keep all of her gift assignments”’ Nadia answered.
“That’s it?”
“Well, yes, that and the surgery of course.”
Twenty women began. Nineteen procedures later and only one remained. Altered indefinitely for the love of her life’s viewing pleasure and the audiences appetite for change.
“Are those…?”
“Yep, those are the next gift assignments.”
“Then the next challenge is…?”
“It’s the most popular one they’ve got. They call it ‘The Booby Prize’. They used to call it ‘Busts or Bust’ but people seem to like this name better.”
They sensed them before they arrived.
“Nadia?”
“Yes, Melissa?”
“Would you please prepare your Wolves? They may not be ready for one such as Johnny.”
Nadia nodded her head, rose from the couch and went to intercede with her family on behalf of the future.
“Uncle Johnny?”
“Yes, Daemon?”
“What’s a booby?”
Melissa was enjoying Johnny’s discomfort as the Wind family entered the room. She saw the immediate reaction when suddenly, without any visible fanfare they stopped short and tested the air.
There were three of them, one large, two average as was the norm. The larger would be the mate of Nadia while the others would be the Wolves of the two Vampires who had not yet made an appearance.
“Thor, this is Mistress Melissa. Mistress Melissa, this is my mate, Thor” Nadia said by introduction.
Thor was large and handsome with a somewhat Scandinavian appearance. He had blond hair, blue eyes and wore a beard. He stood above average height for a Werewolf which made him a giant among mankind but Melissa had seen larger. She was Matriarch to two of the largest Wolves ever conceived and if little Daemon grew into his potential would be the aunt to the biggest, baddest beast the world would hopefully never know about.
“Hello, Wolf Thor” Melissa said.
“Hello, Mistress” he responded.
The ritual was the same whenever she encountered another in her clan. Clan life was rigid yet fragile. She was Matriarch but only because the Council had deemed it so. All Superiors eventually made their decisions alone. They would grudgingly accept a Council ruling but if they decided the ruling was something they could not abide they would ignore it and face the consequences. They knew no fear so were incapable of doing otherwise. If Thor did not accept Melissa’s authority then he would be forfeit. He would lose his life for Melissa would order it so. Once done, things would change. Thor was the Alpha Wolf of Wind family and mated to Nadia thus if he were eliminated she would lose her Matriarchy and Melissa would lose an ally. Luckily for all involved Thor was not impressed with the mate Melissa brought with her. He took one look at Johnny and realized he was in no way threatened by the Wolf who would rule over him.
“I ask for your loyalty, Wolf of Wind” Melissa said.
“You have it, Mistress” he replied and the quest for world supremacy continued.