Breaking out of the trees into the area cleared around the house, he walked the horses into the stables. Dirk and Todd came over from the side of the house and helped him.
“Take the supplies up to the house, I’m leaving shortly.” He told the two before hearing the back door slam.
“Well,” Todd smirked, “seems like the two rabbits are coming out of their hole.”
Michael turned to him, confusion on his face. “Rabbits?”
Todd said no more but pointed towards the house. “A dead man would be able to tell.”
Michael stepped out of the stables and noticed Jeremiah, a huge grin on his face, followed by Sarah Jennifer, a look of passion clearly written on hers as she tucked in her shirt.
“Indeed,” Michael called out over his shoulder to Todd.
“Damned good to see you again, Michael!” Jeremiah held out his hand, but when Michael took it, he wrapped Michael up in a hug. “No handshakes for someone like you!”
He stepped back and rubbed under his left arm, “Please tell me that is a sword, and you’re not just happy to see me? Because if you are happy to see me then I am going to go cry at my inferiority.”
Sarah Jennifer slapped him on his arm, “Oh My God!” She stepped around and stopped before Michael, looking up in his face. “Michael Nacht, I owe you an apology... and a promise.”
Michael raised an eyebrow, “I’m sorry, I was expecting Sarah Jennifer. Who are you and what have you done with her?” He made a point of looking at the woman who stepped into his personal space.
She poked him in the middle of his chest, “I’m her, you dick!” Then, she rested her forehead slowly down on Michael’s chest and started crying.
Michael’s eyes opened wide in alarm and looked at Jeremiah, confused. Jeremiah pantomimed patting her on the back, so Michael did so, being gentle. The woman started talking as she tried to clear her tear drops.
“I was a bitch, ok? I was a kickass female who took no shit from anyone and GOD what a mistake.” She stepped back, into Jeremiah’s chest who wrapped her up in his arms. She cuddled against him for a second, composing herself. “Not no shit from no one. But the bitch part.” She wiped at her face, “Someone taught me that you can be gentle, and still not take any shit from anyone.” She looked up and kissed Jeremiah on the cheek before turning back to Michael. ” And I love him. So ... I promise not to be that person again.”
Michael, poleaxed, turned to Todd and Dirk who just smiled and shrugged their shoulders as if to say, ‘who knew?’
“Well, you have more work ahead of you,” Michael started to explain but Jeremiah interrupted.
“Boss Childers?” He asked.
“Dead,” Michael confirmed.
“Russell?” Todd asked from behind him.
Michael turned to look at the man. “Very dead.”
“What about his other guys?” Dirk kicked in.
He shrugged, “Not sorry to say, no longer with us,” Michael answered.
“What about all of the women over there?” Sarah Jennifer asked.
“Free to be who they want to be. Anyone who Jack used to attack me, plus one other, is dead.” He answered.
“That’s the work we have ahead of us, helping them?” Jeremiah asked.
Michael smiled at the man and turned to grab the one horse with supplies that he was keeping. “No.” He answered and stepped up into the saddle and turned towards the east. “I’m talking about your child. Sarah Jennifer is pregnant.” He touched his nose and gently popped the reigns of the horse which started trotting out of the yard.
All of the men stared at Sarah Jennifer, who was looking down at her own stomach in surprise, holding it with her hands.
CHAPTER SEVEN
South of old Denver (United States Post-Apoc)
Jacqueline rode into the area south of Denver with the horses. She didn’t need the animals so much as she needed something to trade with.
The Weres had taken over a couple of large buildings. One of them was a huge warehouse. It was so big it could cover their little encampment with room to spare. By using found scrap, and some judicial use of muscle, the families had built a nice fence between the buildings.
She rode up and waited for the …
A male voice called out, “I see you, what do you want?”
“Name’s Jacqueline. I was here a while back with seven of my friends before we went out into the Fallen Lands. We traded then, would like to trade now.”
“Don’t remember you, where are you from?” the male voice called back.
“Pack in Chicago,” she replied.
“Oh, a rich bitch,” he retorted.
She briefly pressed her lips together. With patience she hadn’t had last time she was here, she answered. “No, that’s the pack to the east of Chicago. Rich and righteous, all of them. Act like they can walk on water, and their shit don’t stink.”
She heard the chuckles from her talker and… yup, a couple of others.
“Alright, you know the secret password,” he called back and then the screech of metal, and wheels needing lubrication hit her ears as she watched the massive door slowly open a few feet. Enough for her and the two horses to get through.
It took her three hours to find someone to trade the horses for a couple of weapons and some local money. They recognized she didn’t have the feed to keep them inside for more than two days, tops. They used it for bargaining power, not knowing she wanted to be out of there by the morning.
It took another two hours for her to see the Alpha.
He told her in no uncertain terms, she would meet with him again the next night. Using, what felt like, the last of the patience she had found when encountering Micahel, she nodded her acceptance and left his quarters. She stepped outside the main building and walked around the grounds, wondering if Michael would come here, or if he would leave her behind.
Well, shit. Now she was stuck in another camp.
She turned to look into the shadows when she heard the noise. A mess of old covers moved and then a voice, racked with age called out, “Hello.”
She looked around then stepped towards the voice, only getting close enough, so their conversation had a chance of being private. “Yes?”
“You look like you aren’t from here, are you child?”
Jacqueline looked around. No one was close to them. There were people with rifles up on the roofs of the two buildings, but none close enough to hear her. “No, Chicago.”
“Recent?” Came the old man’s voice, a cough racking him. He had to be close to death, this old man. Most Weres stayed in good shape.
“No,” she looked around one more time and chose to step a couple of feet closer.
“I ain’t going to bite, young lady. Even were I young enough, I was taught honor.”
She snorted. “Honor, now there’s a word I hadn’t believed in.” She spoke as much to herself as him.
Another couple of coughs before the pile of covers asked, “Why not?”
Jacqueline considered her response and finally just walked about ten feet along the darkened wall. She came to a stop then and, back against the wall, slid down and sat on the concrete. The covers the old man was using were old and full of dirt, sweat, and a little sickness. She couldn’t smell him over the putridness of the covers around him, and she was thankful for that.
She stared out across the open areas to the other building but kept her voice low. “Because being told, I need to have honor came from my Dad. He was always so upright like he had a stick up his butt when I was growing up. He kept preaching and preaching and preaching at me. It felt like nothing I did could have a compliment without a warning. Finally, I figured I knew enough and decided that searching out the Fallen Lands with my close friends was the way to a better life. Come out here, find some technology that could be used again and my life would be set.”
“Didn’t happen that way?” He asked, softly.
“No, it didn’t.” She admitted. “We made it
here to Denver and just one day north of the city we got attacked by hunters who used silver. Seven of my friends were killed, and I was blinded.”
Worry came from the old man. “You healed, right? You seem like you can see now.”
She nodded, “I can see now, but that was because I was healed by a man. I spent a long time as a slave to a human, hearing him tell others he was just waiting for me to get old enough so he could be the first to rape me.”
“Rape you?” the man cried out, in alarm before his coughing took over.
“Didn’t happen,” she replied her voice calm.
“What did?” he asked once his coughing subsided.
“The Dark Messiah did, just like the stories my Dad told me when I was but a little girl on his lap. Like the vampires of old, before the apocalypse.”
“Who,” the old man asked, his voice a little stronger.
“What?” she turned to him.
“His name,”
“Michael,” she replied.
“Oh my God,” the old man whispered. “He actually came back. She was right.”
“Who was right?”
There was a long pause from the old man. “Didn’t you listen to your Dad’s stories?” he asked her gently. “Michael has a woman in his life. He was killed, so we thought, by a nuclear weapon out west of here. But his love, Bethany Anne, always said he would come back for her. Now, you are telling me he is back?”
“Well, if you mean the Michael that can walk in the sun, cause men and women to feel so much fear all they can do is lie on the ground and piss themselves, then yes ... he’s back.” she agreed.
“I’ll be damned, we have a shot to get you out of here, Jacqueline.” he told her.
The old man told her a few more things, and twenty minutes later, he left her crying silently, holding on to his covers as her tears fell freely into them. Now that she had the covers next to her body, she could smell her father.
—
It took Michael a little while, and a couple of backtracks, to finally locate the old road that he could follow to Denver. This time, he didn’t Myst or use any extra abilities.
He just enjoyed the ride with his horse, Tabby. On more than one occasion, the horse tried to do the exact opposite of what he wanted. So, he named the horse after the one person he remembered causing him such trouble.
And Tabitha was her name.
He considered calling the horse BA, after Bethany Anne but figured he might feel a little weird leaving the horse behind. He sure as hell wouldn’t have the same emotional connection with one named Tabby. Not that he didn’t love Tabitha in his own way, but leaving behind an annoying and petulant horse named Tabby?
He could manage that.
Michael rode into Denver, a city rising up out of grass and weeds. He stopped Tabby and looked at the outline of a city in ruin.
Mother Earth reclaiming her materials, one year at a time.
He noticed that only a small portion of the city was actually being used and even had some electricity. Most of the outskirts he had ridden through were shades of their former selves if they even existed any longer. There had been a fair number of wooden structures, but now all you had left were areas of grass and dirt. The cement foundations succumbing to the years with no humans present.
It was certainly hotter than he was expecting. He popped the reigns and Tabby started walking again, heading into a town that most, it looked like, had forgotten.
—
Juliana had been on her feet for seven hours already. As the main waitress in this bar for the last eighteen months, she had seen a lot. Been pitched job offers, proselytized to by men who needed to feel good about drinking, and had enough men leer at her that she had two designations for men. One was scumbags.
The other was dead.
So, if they walked in under their own power, then scumbag it was. That was ok, she got paid well by scumbags. She knew how to use her assets.
For whatever reason, her hair was so black it seemed to have blue highlights when the sun caught it just right. The simple outfit of jeans and an old, men’s dress shirt that she wore untucked, was the only uniform she ever used.
“Juliana,” old man Milton called out from table ten back in the corner. He had made it to his fourth decade and actually survived over twenty years mining. Now, he invested in the younger guys and made sure they treated him fair in their agreements. Well, his knee-breaker and life-taker, Kent who always stood behind him, made sure they were as honest as they needed to be.
She turned toward him. “Another moonie, Mr. Milton?” He picked up, and showed her, his empty glass and she gave him a thumbs up and walked towards the bar. The door into the building opened behind her, but she ignored it. “Jimmie,” she called to him, “we need a clear Moonie for Mr. Milton.” She pointed down to the open tabs on the desk behind the bar counter, “That’s him third from the top. Make sure we have…” She looked up to find Jimmie was looking behind her, “Dammit, Jimmie! Listen to me, Mr. Milton...”
But, Jimmie wasn’t paying any attention to her. She turned to see what he was watching, and that’s when she saw the man in black. His head as bare as a baby’s behind. As he was looking around the room, she checked his shoes. He didn’t have cowboy boots like most travelers. No, his looked black.
Like combat boots.
And he radiated danger.
“Here, Juliana,” she turned around to see Jimmie offering her the drink, “I wrote it down on his tab.” She nodded and put it on her tray. She turned back around and headed toward Mr. Milton’s table, sneaking another glance at the stranger.
—
“Can I get you something?” she asked him.
“Don’t know, what do you have, and can you let me know if you have seen a young looking woman in here?”
“Except myself?” she answered. It wasn’t often she had to work a flirt with any guy. However, he certainly wasn’t paying any attention to her, and he wasn’t dead. He didn’t radiate the feeling that he batted for the other team either.
“Yes, of course,” he glanced up at her. His blue eyes taking her in, but she merely felt he was now aware of what she looked like. She couldn’t get upset for being judged because he obviously didn’t judge her.
He was dead to other women. She already hated this other bitch. Juliana might not like most guys, but she liked it when other women could hold a man’s attention when she was right in front of them even less.
“We have local moonshine and three kinds of beer, all locally brewed. We don’t have a large enough population out here to import any special beers for general sale. We have some beef either ground up for burgers or cut up in a stew with leeks and potatoes.”
“I’ll try your moonshine, thank you,” Michael answered.
She took his order and left to go to the bar.
Behind him, the door opened and three toughs entered the bar. He considered moving tables based on the thoughts he could pick up from the first man’s mind, but he really needed the practice.
Or at least that was what he was telling himself.
The waitress returned with his glass, but he waved her off, “Keep it, or it will just get spilled.”
She looked at him strangely, and then at the three men coming up behind him and turned around and headed back towards the bar.
“You’re in my seat,” the man growled behind him.
“Your point?” Michael asked, not bothering to look behind him.
“My point is, you need to move,” he replied.
“I’m comfortable here. However, to prove I can be magnanimous,” he pointed to the three empty chairs at the table, “You can sit with me. I won’t even charge you for the opportunity.”
“Listen, last time it cost me a half day's wage when we busted up Kraven’s bar.”
Michael turned in his chair and looked up at the tough, “Kraven, really?” his look of wonder caught the tough by surprise.
“Yeah, Kraven. He runs Denver and owns this
bar. Me and the boys here work for him. So, we are important, as well.”
“No, I think you misunderstand,” Michael replied, “I’m asking because that has to be one of the top twenty stupidest names I’ve heard someone call themselves. Let me ask, is he a hunter?”
“Mr. Kraven isn’t going to like someone disrespecting his name, Robert,” the guy in the back, on the right, piped up, “He probably would be okay with a little destruction before we take it out into the street and beat the shit out of him.”
The Dark Messiah Page 7