The Ballad of Aramei

by J. A. Redmerski

  Nathan steps toward me. “This isn’t the time to start blaming yourself, or questioning your position as Alpha.” He forces his hands on my shoulders, shaking me to. “This is our father, Isaac.” He pushes the words on me aggressively so that I’ll let the truth of his words sink in. “This isn’t some neonate half-breed Alpha, he’s the Sovereign and all of us—,” his gripping fingers fall off my shoulders and he points to himself with both hands, “—all of us made the same mistake, bro. None of us saw this coming!”

  But I was the one supposed to be able to see it coming. I’m Alpha….

  “Let’s go,” I say without another word and I make for my Jeep, jump inside and slam the key in the ignition.

  Nathan gets in on the passenger’s side.

  Everyone follows us out in a chaotic procession of squealing tires and bouncing headlights illuminating the dark trees out ahead.

  In under a minute, when the first house comes into view along the dimly-lit road, I see them.

  Nathan was right. They are everywhere, hidden in the shadows of every yard. Some are perched atop the roofs and in the trees. I can see their preternatural eyes glinting off the moonlight in the darkness like owls hidden in the branches.

  The dogs are too afraid to bark anymore.

  “Holy shit, bro…,” Nathan looks nervous and excited as we drive by that first house and see two brooding werewolves, still in human form, standing on the side of the house at the garage.

  Our procession of vehicles slows down almost to a crawl. I feel like one of those kids sitting in the backseat as his parents drive him down the brightly-lit streets of a Christmas wonderland. Except this is much darker and the figures scattered about the lawns of all of these houses aren’t giant inflatable snowmen or nativity scenes.

  Every. Single. House. From Water Street, to 2 and Litchfield and Smith and finally to Vaughan. All my father has to do is flutter his eyelids and every person as far as two towns over from Hallowell will be dead.

  I open up my ears to hear the residents inside as we pass, but no one so far seems to know that they’re in danger. Thankfully, most of the town’s residents are still asleep.

  Finally, I pull off the road and onto Beverlee and Carl’s long dirt driveway leading to their house. I pick up the speed now that I’ve got a better idea of what we’re up against all over the town and come to a hard stop outside the Dawson house. The only car parked out front is Beverlee’s old gray Chevy Malibu. But I sense those inside and I can hear Nataša’s voice slithering through the room.

  We get out cautiously and more than a dozen vehicles pull in behind us, clogging the driveway all the way out onto the main street; some park along the main street.

  There’s only one light burning in the house, downstairs in the den. Shadows move across the windows of the downstairs floor and so far I can tell there are at least six different figures inside. The tall light pole that stands between the old barn and the house casts a buzzing grayish-white light across a large portion of the west side of the yard. Movement stirs inconspicuously at the side of the barn. Two werewolves. And then on the top of the roof. Two more werewolves. The house is surrounded.

  But I don’t sense my father.

  “Nathan?” I say without looking away from the house. “I don’t think Father is inside.”

  “I don’t, either,” he says in a low voice.

  A large crowd walks in behind us and I turn around to see Treven standing at the head of them all; Sebastian is next to him.

  “Treven,” I begin, “I need you to take everyone with you, spread out throughout the town wherever you see an enemy and do whatever you have to do to keep them from Turning in front of the humans and, more importantly, keep them from killing or infecting them.”

  I look to Nathan and Xavier. “I’m going inside and it’s probably best that I go alone.”

  Xavier shakes his head in refusal. “Oh, no way, brother,” he says, “my mother is in there and I’m going with you.”

  “That’s why you shouldn’t go,” I say.

  Xavier grits his teeth.

  “I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” Nathan says, “But I don’t think it’s a good idea to face them alone.”

  “You doubt me?” I say, offended, but quietly doubting myself a little.

  “I don’t doubt your strength, Isaac,” Nathan says, “but I do doubt your heart.”

  “My heart?” I say blankly.

  Nathan nods. “Humans are involved; Adria’s aunt and uncle, which makes it worse. Nataša isn’t here holding them hostage so Beverlee will show her how to scrapbook—she’ll use them against you.”

  “So, you doubt my ability to make hard decisions.”

  He’s right to doubt me, but I remain outwardly firm.

  Nathan gives up and says, “I’ll go with Treven. There are at least one hundred of her beasts out there and unless we want a whole town infected in one night, Treven needs as many of us as we can spare.”

  I nod in agreement and then I turn to Sebastian. “Are you alright in this?” I think because he’s still so new and a half-breed, I feel a sort of responsibility to him.

  “Hey, man, I’m good,” he puts up his hands,

  I give Treven and Nathan one last nod and all of them take off running through the trees in a flash of scattering figures.

  Xavier is still standing beside me.

  “Maybe I can talk to her,” he says about Nataša. “I know she’s a hardass, but…I hate to say it, but she’s not like Sibyl.”

  His comment about my mother didn’t sting as he apparently thought it would; I got over my mother’s betrayal a long time ago.

  “Nataša is loyal to our father,” I say and then from the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of the figures inside the house moving across the front window. “She will do whatever he’s told her to do, Xavier, and that includes taking you down with me if it comes to that.”

  Xavier tries to act as if the truth doesn’t faze him, but I know otherwise. He rounds his chin and says, “At least let me talk to her. Give me that much. If she chooses her orders over her own son, then you do what you have to do and I won’t interfere.”

  So then it’s not just me and Nathan and Daisy who want things in our society to change. Even Xavier understands the importance of freedom and revolution. All of us, my brothers and sisters and I, have lived among humans for too long, inadvertently exposed to human nature and have experienced the differences in their nature and ours. We have come to realize that the ways of our generations-old totalitarian government and lifestyle is wrong, and that it doesn’t have to be.

  Change begins with us.

  I inhale a deep breath and say, “Okay, I’ll give you the chance.”

  And without wasting any more time, we head toward the front porch together.

  ~~~

  “Eet ees about time you joined us,” Nataša says in an accent, standing in the den in the center of the room. “Xavier, I am surprised you have involved yourself in this…atrocity.”

  There are six other beasts standing in the room with her: one near the stairs leading to the upper-floor, two in the den with Nataša, one in the kitchen looking out the window at the front yard, one at the large den window and now one right behind Xavier and I.

  I still don’t see my father. Could he be waiting upstairs? But why?

  I realize that he isn’t here. I felt it earlier, a heavy feeling of absence, but now I’m sure of it. So many things are shooting around inside my head.

  Right now the most important thing is what’s in front of me: Adria’s aunt and uncle, terrified and in grave danger.

  Beverlee sits in her nightgown on the center couch cushion with her back straight and rigid; her trembling hands are pressed against her thighs where she wrenches the fabric of her gown in her fingertips. Tears streak down her face and I know she wants to look at me, but she’s too afraid to move her eyes. Her brown hair is matted and ravaged; strands are stretched messily across her face, stuck to
her skin by tears and snot and sweat. Carl Dawson is in his favorite chair, but the way he sits there in an unnatural position with his back at an angle, tells me he had been tossed there by violent hands. Carl is shirtless and wears a pair of navy pajama bottoms. There’s a trickle of blood running down the under part of his neck and instantly I fear that maybe he’s already been infected, but I’m relieved when I notice the blood came from his busted nose. There is no emotion in his face except the fear I see in his eyes. Unlike Beverlee, he does make eye contact with me and I know he’s hoping that I’m here to help them, but can’t understand how someone like me, a twenty-year-old guy seemingly harmless, could possibly help in a situation like this. He keeps glancing covertly over at Beverlee, wanting only to reach out and hold her even if in his arms she truly isn’t safe.

  Xavier speaks up first:

  “Mother,” he says carefully, “this isn’t right. They have nothing to do with what happened to Aramei.” He doesn’t feel confident with his own words, but he’s trying. He swallows and takes a deep breath, stepping forward just a little. “Only rogues do this; take human hostages and risk exposing our society to theirs. You know it’s wrong.”

  Nataša would probably smile wickedly right about now, but she has never been one to smile even for mocking sake. She stands there for a moment, studying her son. Her dark red hair is pulled back tight into a ponytail, stretching the skin at the corners of her eyes and making them appear tight and slanted. As always, she wears her signature skin-tight black leather bodysuit and tall black boots with the shit-kicking kind of heels.

  She walks across the room to stand in front of Xavier and I step up beside him boldly. She reaches out and combs her fingers through Xavier’s messy blond bangs, but says nothing to him in return.

  She looks right at me, getting right down to business, bypassing the ridiculous monologue that we all know would make absolutely no difference.

  “Where is your foolish, blasphemous little mate?”

  I stay calm. As calm as I can, considering. “Not here, obviously.”

  “That is unfortunate.” She turns only her head to see one of her men and he moves in behind Beverlee. I tense up and Beverlee’s tears rush heavier to the surface as if someone had turned on a faucet behind her head. The man’s shadow looms threateningly over her. His black claws are at the ready down at his sides.

  Carl struggles in the chair, his face contorted into a livid and frightful expression, but he can’t move. I notice a flicker of hatred for himself pass over his eyes, hatred for being paralyzed and feeling completely useless when Beverlee needs him the most.

  I ready myself internally, keeping one eye on the one behind Beverlee so I’ll see when he goes to make his move and one eye on Nataša who stands inches from me, waiting on me to make my move.

  “Where is my father?” I say.

  Nataša licks the dryness from her lips in a slow, concentrating motion, never taking her eyes off me.

  “Not here, obviously,” she mocks without having to let it show in her face; maybe just a little in the depths of her piercing dark eyes.

  Something urgent is digging away at the back of my brain and then I realize…it’s Adria.

  Thrown completely off balance and my game, I stagger backward, knocking over the small console table Beverlee used to display family portraits; the frames crash onto the floor, the glass shattering.

  “He’s here! Isaac, he’s—.” Her voice cuts off in my head.

  My heart feels like it’s about to explode! The people in the town. Beverlee and Carl. Adria, who is over an hour away….

  “I take it you know where he is,” Nataša says so coldly that I react in a flash, shifting into my mediate form and lunging for her.

  All I see is furniture and picture frames and sheetrock wall zip past my line of sight so fast that it all blends into a seamless streak of color. Nataša’s back hits the fireplace mantle and the stone it’s made up with crumbles into a thousand pieces. The walls of the house shake and rumble. A white-hot pain spreads across my face and over the back of my head when Nataša jerks back and bashes her head into my face. I land in the center of the glass-top coffee-table; my legs and arms splayed, hanging over the top of the wooden frame the glass had been held in by. Nataša is on top of me before I can jump out; her black eyes swirling like a violent storm; her long, black razor-sharp claws cutting pieces of flesh from my face as she slashes at me over and over and over. I do the only thing I can do and pay her back with a violent knock to her skull with my forehead and it’s just enough time to stun her out of her advantage. She rises up from me and in that split second, I manage to pull back both of my knees toward me and plunge my feet outward into her chest. Her body flies across the room, but she catches herself before hitting the wall and rolls once back into a crouched position.

  Carl and Beverlee are trying to crawl across the carpeted floor, Beverlee practically dragging Carl by his arm because he can’t move his own legs.

  I defy gravity and leap up, latching onto the high ceiling to get out of Nataša’s way when I notice her barreling towards me. The second my hands and knees hit the ceiling, Xavier’s figure blurs right past underneath me and he spears his mother and they’re both sent crashing into the giant television. A bright spark flashes and a searing pop and fizzle hisses through the room as the screen is destroyed by their bodies.

  I fall from the ceiling perfectly on my feet right in front of Beverlee and Carl; Beverlee yelps and cowers lower against the floor.

  “I’m going to get you out of here,” I say and just as I go to grab them both from the floor, the other six beasts, also in their mediate forms, rush me from all sides.

  I lose my grip on Beverlee’s hand and see her face fall away from me as my body is hurled through the den; a crunching sound reverberates from my ribs and into my head as one foot slams into my side. And while Xavier fights his mother, I see that I’m left to fight six on my own. Blood slips into the corners of my mouth, my arms are prickled by shards of glass littered all around me from no telling what all has been broken in the struggle. As the brooding figures advance on me, I faintly hear the sounds of the other beasts in the town rise into a frenzy.

  I spring and bound across the room straight for the ones coming at me and I take two down. I sit straddled on top of one, slashing away at his face and neck and chest much like Nataša had done to me just moments ago, until I’m dragged off him by the back of my shirt.

  No…I can’t shift here.

  I’m trying everything in my power to keep my beast inside, because I have to. I can’t become what I am here because I could very easily mistake Beverlee and Carl for the enemy in that violent, destructive, blood-thirsty form. I feel my ribs cracking as I’m dragged across the room, the pain in my skull starts at a tiny point right between my eyes and is beginning to spread towards the back of my head and widen as if a fissure is splitting right down the center of my skull.

  I scream out in pain, trying to hold it back; not the pain, but my beast.

  There’s a crash nearby and it jolts me momentarily back into my senses, making me more alert than crazed and on the verge of changing. I see Beverlee’s bare feet slipping around the side of the couch and Carl’s limp, heavy legs being dragged with her.

  But the crash, I realize, came from the large bay window overlooking the front yard. Two familiar figures stand inside the den while two more burst through the front door, knocking it clean off its hinges.

  It’s Viktor and Ashe, the two we shackled with them back at our house and a handful of others I’ve never seen before.

  Viktor races over to me with burning anger and intensity in his eyes. I prepare for impact, to be in battle with my father’s greatest enemy, but he stops just inches from my face. His mouth is twisted into an unbreakable scowl; his black eyes bear down on me as if they contain all of the world’s hatred in their depths. “You remember, Isaac Mayfair, when you see my face again it won’t be to help you.” I only allow him t
o get away with grabbing my shirt and pulling my face towards his because I’m confused by what he’s saying. I feel his hot breath on my skin; so rank and deadly. “I want the Sovereign dethroned,” he goes on like the madman he knows he is, his voice low and harsh, like the most extreme sort of whisper.

  And as he slowly leans away and releases my shirt, I understand why he’s here: he feels he has a better chance at Sovereignty defeating me than my father. He’s not here to help me; he’s here to help himself.

  I accept it and move quickly to the side as he and Ashe and the others with him clash with the six who were about to tear me a new one. I race through the den and into the back room where I saw Beverlee finally manage to drag Carl. I scoop them up, one in each arm and propel myself through the room and to the back door, bursting through the screen and out into the night. Beverlee screams against me even though I’m trying to help her and I feel the dead weight of Carl’s paralyzed legs swinging all around me since he has no control over their movement. I run as fast as my not-so-human legs will take me until I make it far away from the werewolves scattered and fighting throughout the town.

  I set Beverlee and Carl down behind an abandoned building that smells like water damage and old air. With my bare hand, I rip the rusted padlock from the door and the door creaks open.

  “Get inside and hide,” I say quickly, “don’t come out.”

  Beverlee, still in shock and staring up at me from the ground wide-eyed, finally understands and goes to help Carl inside.

  I leave them there and watch the lights of traffic and stars and houses flash by me as I speed toward Sugarloaf Mountain. I’m fastest in my mediate form and know that if I have any chance of getting there in time, that this is the only way I’ll make it.

  But already I feel my heart breaking because I can’t hear Adria or feel her emotions. She has been blocked from me and I know….I know that in a time like this she would never do it on purpose….

  HARRY