Eclipse of the Beginning

by J. L. Hendricks

  “I work for da werewolves; the one I met wit he’s an extrey-large werewolf an he hates de blonds and ‘puters. I sees him grab e blonde gerl wit da fancy laptop and throw her ov’r de bridges. He say she makes ‘im sneeze.” Scarface shivered and had a far off look in his eyes. “Don’t send me back to em, please. I work fer ye now.” The human seemed to cower in front of Lancer, but he wasn’t buying the act.

  “Do you really work for a werewolf, or are you lying to me?” Lancer eyed him coolly while debating what to do next.

  “Of curse, I don’t werk fer no werewolf! What are ye, a nitwit? Whos e’er herd of werewolves bein’ real?”

  “If you’re not going to cooperate then I have no use for you. Why were you going after that girl?”

  “I aint sayen notin. I know me rights.”

  “You have no rights here.”

  Lancer pulled out his long sword, it was polished to a high shine and he ran his thumb along the edge to see if it was sharp. Sure enough, it drew blood just barely touching his thumb. “You either tell me what I want to know or you lose your head tonight. Your choice.” Lancer shrugged his shoulders as though he didn’t care either way.

  The large man hung there saying nothing. He tried to look as defiant as he could while hanging from a meat hook. Lancer nodded to the Reverend who lowered the rope holding the man up. When he lowered his hands enough, Lancer stepped in and swung his sword across the large man’s shoulders effectively severing his head.

  “Reverend, I think we are going to need Ash right away. This girl’s in danger.” Lancer wrapped the body and head in the plastic tarp he had put underneath the man while he hung unconscious in the air. Then took it and put it in the trunk of their car.

  One more piece of trash to take to the dump, Lancer mused to himself as he cleaned up before they left the warehouse.

  The Reverend looked over to Lancer while he was stopped at a red light and considered for a moment what he was going to say, “I don’t normally condone killing humans, but I do believe in this situation it was warranted. I think you should go over to her apartment and keep an eye on her all night. I’ll bring Ash back in the morning to relieve you.”

  “Yes, of course. Thank you, Reverend. And for the record, that was the first human I killed, well the first who wasn’t in the process of being changed into a Ripper Hybrid. But he looked and acted more like a ripper than a human.” Lancer looked outside and watched as the scenery flew by.

  ◊◊◊

  “Reverend, to what do I owe the pleasure?” Ash asked as he motioned for the Reverend to come into his apartment. Ash was currently living in Las Vegas and not really paying much attention to anything except for the blackjack tables and the showgirls. He figured the Reverend was here to try and convince him to come back to Sendryl for the thousandth time.

  “Ash, I see you haven’t made any plans to move back to Sendryl yet? I thought we decided it would be best if you went home to your family?”

  “Nah, that’s what you decided. I never agreed to it.” Ash brought out two water bottles and glasses and put them on the coffee table in front of the Reverend. Then he poured them each a glass of cold water.

  “Ash, I have a very important assignment for you. Before you turn me down, here me out.” Ash was about to interrupt him and say no. Then he decided it couldn’t hurt to listen to what the Reverend had to say.

  “Alright, shoot. What’s the assignment and where is it?” Since living in Las Vegas, he had picked up quite a bit of Earth slang. The Reverend didn’t seem to care for it as he narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips in displeasure each time Ash used Earth slang; which only made him want to use it more. This was the only way he could get away with disrespecting the Reverend, and he knew it.

  “It’s a protection detail for a very important Earth girl. She lives outside of LA and has been targeted by both the rippers and the dissidents. I need you to join the team of warriors who are protecting her. And I need you to leave today. We stopped an attempt on her life last night, but I don’t know how long it will be before another comes looking for her.”

  “Why doesn’t her own police protect her?”

  “Because they can’t protect her against the rippers, only you can do that. Can you be packed and ready to go within thirty minutes?”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. I never said I would go.”

  “Are you telling me no? You do realize I can order you to leave right now, right?”

  “Reverend I would never turn my back on an order. However, let me just say that I don’t think I am the right one for this assignment. If she is truly important as you say, then I believe you came to the wrong guy.” Ash was a tall warrior, he was six feet five inches and had darker color skin than a lot of the men around town. But it looked more like he had a really dark suntan. Most of the Sennafae Warriors had a darker tone to their skin. It was only the rippers who had pasty white skin.

  Women were easily attracted to his good looks and the smooth lines he delivered flawlessly night after night. The Reverend was surprised to find Ash alone at this time of morning. The sun hadn’t even come up yet. The last time he visited Ash, two of his female visitors were barely dressed. Rumor had it that Ash had multiple human girls staying with him in his apartment at any given time. Apparently, Earth girls were easy.

  “Come on, I’ll help you pack. The sooner we leave here, the sooner we will get to LA.”

  Four hours later they pulled up to where B’Lana lived in Yorba Linda. Ash got out of the car stretching and asked, “Is this suburbia or LA? The last time I was in LA, it wasn’t this clean.”

  “We’re in a suburb called Yorba Linda. Technically it isn’t in LA, but this entire area is LA to me.”

  “Fine, who will I be working with on this assignment?” The last person Ash wanted to see walked over towards the car right at that moment. “Aw, for the love of two moons!”

  “Hello Ash, it’s good to see you standing upright this time. I take it the Reverend told you about our detail?” Lancer looked Ash up and down and judged him to be sober, but barely. Earth alcohol did nothing for the Sennafae, so they would bring over wine from Sendryl that could get them intoxicated.

  “Yes, I understand we have to babysit a little Earth girl and kill anything that comes after her.”

  “Yes and no. We will protect the young woman in that apartment.” Lancer pointed to a third story balcony where a young lady sat outside sipping on her morning coffee. She wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t going to win any beauty contests either. The woman had long brown hair which she usually kept in a large braid down her back. While she seemed healthy, her hips were a bit large and rounded. Ash judged that she could stand to lose some weight.

  “Are we going to train her to protect herself? That might be better to teach her how to fish for herself,” Ash asked.

  The Reverend spoke up, “In no way are you to reveal yourselves to her. She is not to know that you’re there. You are to be like ghosts, no one should be able to see you.”

  “How are we supposed to protect her if we can’t get near her?” Ash asked as he looked between Lancer and the Reverend.

  Lancer spoke up and said, “We watch from a distance, and we stop anything dangerous that gets close. We aren’t going to wait for someone to try and attack her, we take them out before she can even see them.”

  The Sennafae spent the next few hours discussing how best to protect B’Lana while staying in the shadows. Ash left to take a nap and then came back in the evening to relieve Lancer.

  Ash kept to the shadows but couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the girl. He wanted nothing more than to join her on her patio for dinner and drinks. There was something about her that drew him to her.

  He caught movement out of his left and moved to inspect the situation. Turned out it was just a dog.

  The unearthly mammoth of male, went back to his post and continued to watch her, mesmerized by her presence. “Why does she draw me to her? She isn’t very beautiful.
She seems to have an aura of confidence, but also something else. Could it be magic? No, that’s impossible since she was only a human.” However, he did feel a tiny magical pull from her.

  “Strange, to experience this type of pull from a human? I never even felt this from Hannah.” Hannah was to be Ash’s mate. She was a human he saved over a decade ago from the rippers. She joined their squad and helped to keep their headquarters cleaned up. He was going to transform her into a human/Sennafae hybrid but something went wrong and he killed her instead. This is what sent Ash down a path of debauchery for the past ten years.

  Once a Sennafae took a mate, they never mated again. They only had one for their entire existence, which could be up to 300 years if they were lucky, although most only lived to about 240 years. Sadly, Ash believed that Hannah was his mate, even though they had not officially mated.

  While Ash stared at the pretty girl on the balcony, something evil slithered its way to her stairs without Ash noticing.

  The fog was coming through the staircase, which was the first sign that something was wrong. Ash ran as fast as he could to the stairs that led to B’Lana’s apartment.

  When he arrived, blood drenched the stairway as it dripped down each step to where Ash stood. The ground was covered with fog while the air was difficult to breathe through all of the smoke. Watching the blood drip down each step worried him, and he ran up the stairs as quickly as he could while trying not to slip on the blood. But he couldn’t make his way up, each time Ash thought he made it to the next landing, he would magically appear on the ground floor again.

  Ash tried for what seemed like an hour to get up those stairs, and then he heard an ear-piercing scream that frightened him. He jolted awake and wondered what happened. Ash looked around and realized it was a nightmare.

  He had fallen asleep while watching B’Lana.

  “Aaahhh” He heard the scream again and realized that was what woke him up. While looking around to see who was screaming, he quickly made his way to the stairs of B’Lana’s apartment.

  Chapter Three

  When he reached the stairs, he almost thought he saw blood and fog covering the stairs, but it was just his imagination. He ran upstairs and realized the screams were coming from the apartment below B’Lana. Quickly he turned around and ran back down to where he was watching before.

  Once he was back in his shadow, he looked up to the balcony below B’Lana’s and noticed that someone inside was fighting with a man. He figured it was the lady who screamed that was fighting back. “Oh well, it’s not our responsibility to protect the humans. I don’t understand why I have to protect B’Lana, but if the Rev wants her safe, then she’ll be safe.”

  He looked up to B’Lana’s apartment and noticed that her sliding glass door was open, but he couldn’t see her anywhere inside. “Hm, she must be in the kitchen, or her bedroom.”

  Ash looked back to the downstairs neighbor and noticed that the woman in that apartment was doing a great job of kicking that man’s butt! “Good for her,” he thought. And he hoped that B’Lana could take good care of herself like that woman.

  Not ten minutes later the police arrived, and he could see them arresting the man and hauling him away in cuffs. Then he had to do a double-take because he saw B’Lana coming out of the apartment and going downstairs behind the cops.

  “What? Is she the one who beat the tar out of that guy? Nice job, lady.” Ash’s respect for that woman just jumped up several notches. But then he worried that she might be in danger for what she did.

  While sitting there debating if he should follow her to the police station, Lancer came up behind him.

  “I see there was some action here tonight. Is our girl Ok?” Lancer looked over to the apartment and noticed that B’Lana was getting into the front of a police car while an ambulance was taking a woman away on a stretcher.

  “Yes, I heard some screaming and ran to the complex to check it out before I realized it was coming from the apartment below B’Lana. She must have left her unit to help while I was coming back here. I never saw her walk out. Didn’t even realize it was her beating up the man until she walked out of the apartment. What should we do? Follow them?”

  “No, we stay here. Next time fully investigate the source of the noise before giving up. And maybe offer help. You know we used to actually help the humans when they needed it.” Lance sighed while he thought back to better times.

  “Yes, but that was a long time ago, Lancer.”

  “I think we should go back to helping them, they’re so weak compared to the rippers and us. What if something else found this planet? They would never be able to defend themselves against the shifters, and you know it.”

  “That’s not our concern, the Reverend only wanted us to protect this one human, not the entire race. Come on Lancer, let’s get busy while we wait for our girl to get home.”

  The warriors went back to their van and grabbed some surveillance equipment and made their way to B’Lana’s apartment once the area had cleared out of all of the first responders and lookie-loos.

  “Make sure to put the listening devices where she won’t find them. But leave her bedroom alone Ash.” Lancer noticed Ash went straight for B’Lana’s bedroom. He was going through her things and ignored Lancer’s warning.

  Lancer walked into the bedroom and glared at Ash while he was going through her nightstand. “Ash, I said leave this room alone. We don’t need to know what she does in her own bedroom.”

  “Lancer, I was going to put a listening device in her nightstand. That way if anyone tries to get into her room while she’s sleeping we’ll know about it.”

  “I think we’ll know if someone comes inside the apartment, as long as we are doing our job. Now get out of here and put up the rest of the devices. I want to get CCTV set up to see inside her sliding glass door as well as the front door. I want to see everyone who’s coming or going from the place.”

  “Aye, aye, El Capitan!” Ash barked out sarcastically and saluted with his right arm while he walked out of the room.

  It took them longer than they expected and they barely made it back to their spot when B’Lana came home. They turned on the listening devices to see if they could hear her.

  “Yes, I’m fine. All of that martial arts training has paid off. The lady who lives below me was being attacked by her ex-husband. I really think he would have killed her if I hadn’t stopped him.” B’Lana was relaying the whole situation to her friend over the phone. Lancer and Ash could hear her end of the conversation but not the other end.

  “I think we might need to bug her phone. Do you know anyone who’s good with Earth tech?” Lancer looked over at Ash while he asked him his question, but Ash seemed focused on the apartment instead.

  “Ash, did you hear me?”

  “Yes, sorry. I was looking at B’Lana. I think she might have been hurt.”

  Lancer quickly pulled out his binoculars to get a better look. They had perfect eyesight and could see more than 100 yards away in the dark. But he wanted to make sure that Ash wasn’t seeing things.

  “You’re right, she has started to bruise on her face. Looks like that animal hit her. There’s a fist sized mark that is bluish in color on her left cheek. Now I wish you would have stopped him before she could get involved. She also appears to be walking funny, like she has a leg injury. Funny, I didn’t notice this when she left with the police earlier. Did you?” Both Lancer and Ash were getting very angry just thinking about that man putting his hands on B’Lana. They didn’t know it yet, but they were developing feelings for her. One wanted to protect her like a little sister, but the other one was starting to see the beauty in this young woman.

  Ash shook his head. He couldn’t talk for fear of blowing up. He was clenching his fists at his side and furrowed his brows together while he thought of the many ways he would inflict his justice on anyone who touched B’Lana.

  Then he released a large breath, almost like a balloon that was punctured, and rea
lized that he had become protective of her. He was now invested in her safety and welfare. He decided right then and there that if anything dangerous was going on anywhere near her, he wouldn’t walk away again. Next time the perpetrator was going down by his hands, and he would keep B’Lana safe.

  “Ash, where are you currently living?”

  “In a hotel for now. I was planning on finding an apartment somewhere close by. What about you?”

  “I need an apartment as well. I think we should rent one here. It’ll make it much easier for us to keep a closer eye on her.”

  “Agreed, first thing tomorrow I’ll see what’s available with a good view of her apartment.”

  “Thank you, Ash. That will be very helpful.” Lancer sighed as he realized that this was going to be his entire life until she fulfilled the prophecy.

  “DeeDee, no need to come over. I just want to take a hot shower and rest. My neighbor’s idiot of an ex-husband tripped me when we got to the police station, and I twisted my ankle. I just need to relax and put my foot up.” Ash wondered what DeeDee was saying and hoped that she would come over and take care of B’Lana.

  “Fine, I’ll call you tomorrow. Don’t worry, I can take care of myself… But thank you for worrying about me. Maybe we can do a Jane Austen marathon this weekend.” Ash noticed that she had a smile on her face when she spoke about those plans.

  “Lancer, what is a Jane Austen marathon?” Ash looked over at Lancer with confusion on his face, and he scratched his chin while thinking about this.

  “I believe Jane Austen was a romance writer who lived a few hundred years ago. Some of her books have been made into movies and the females of this planet seem to really like her stories.”

  “Have you ever read any of those books?”

  “No, I have no desire to read Earth literature, do you?”