He even saw their fangs. He smelled their stench. Vampires always carried a foul smell of decay, almost smelling worse than the dead bodies strewn all over the field around them. In fact, he would have had trouble in telling all of them apart.
“You have some nerve wolf in coming here to us like this.” Martin snarled some. His voice shook some too.
It told him that they feared him, and he knew why. Nightwalkers feared wolves, but not for what they became when they chose to become it, but for the numbers that they usually brought with them. They didn’t think he was alone.
Let them think it, my friend. Let them believe it if they wish. The wolf agreed.
“I smelled you coming to the field.” It was time to get what he wanted. It was time to find out what they were doing too. “I was wondering what brought you here.” He pushed his voice to continue sounding playful. He didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want to waste what was there for all of them to have. He always played it safe. He didn’t have the choice. Kalima would have it no other way.
The second female vampire laughed. “All of this.” Alice motioned with both of her arms out to the field all around them. She waved her arms over the bodies almost like she was ready to fly out over them the next chance she had.
He also noticed a twinge of fear in her voice too. She looked young, but the look was not her true age. No walker ever looked as old as all of them were.
“What do you want?” Matilda heard the playfulness in his voice. She heard the mocking sound he had within his words. It was time to end this. She also couldn’t help but notice that he was also alone. She didn’t smell others around them. She smelled only him.
He heard this somehow in the darkness of his own mind. Kalima was good at this. He could see some people’s thoughts. He didn’t know how, so he didn’t doubt that he did hear this.
“I have come here to make a deal with you. There are obviously enough dying here to give all of us what we came here for.” He looked around them, saw all of the bodies, saw a yellow glow around some of the lifeless and the yet to be so, and turned back to the three decaying smells. The color was their life force. Some still looked strong, while others were fading fast.
Matilda truly laughed with hearing him say this. She couldn’t help herself. “Why would we wish to share anything with you?” She took two steps forward closer to him and quickly stopped. She had to remain far enough from him to be able to use her speed against his strength if he would change. Any closer, let’s say arm’s length, and he could strike her before she moved. Wolves were stronger than most of them. The way he carried himself with them, coming all alone as he did, meant that he didn’t fear them. He was obviously strong. He was obviously much older in the generations than she was.
All Walkers had strength and speed no matter what type they were, and that was magnified by the chain of the generations. The older generations were stronger than the newer ones such as herself. It was the way their world worked. They possessed a hierarchy and it worked oh so well.
He took a deep breath, but tried to keep it short. He didn’t want to smell them anymore than he already was. As for her thoughts about what generation he was, she wouldn’t believe him even if he told her—showed her. She would die before she learned the full truth.
“I do not wish to fight you Cold Blood. I just want to feed as you three do.”
“You are all alone wolf. Why would we fear you?” Martin realized what Matilda already knew, at least with part of this. With all others things, he knew nothing. He was too young to know the truth of their history or what any of it meant to them. He just knew what he did.
Matilda gave her young one a growl.
He took it for what it was worth, and bowed his head. He did know what that meant.
Matilda looked back to the wolf. “You have a strength about you wolf. You came here alone. You approached us the same way.” She found this courageous if not stupid. She did however respect him for it. That respect gave him her answer. “You…” She was cutoff.
“What in the hell blazes are you doing here?” A young male voice came out of the darkness behind Collins. With all of his concentration on the three vampires, he never smelled the young human come up behind him. He wished he had because of what would happen after he did.
The three vampires saw the human. They saw the uniform. They saw him raise his rifle up to Matilda’s face. They knew instantly what he saw.
Matilda carried a gift. She could see through a human’s eyes, and saw what he saw. She felt what he felt. He saw her eyes. He saw their fangs. He grew afraid by everything he saw.
She turned to the human, and without an effort at all, she rushed him fast.
She was nothing but a blur. She moved with such speed that she almost seemed to vanish and then reappear directly behind him. Within the same flash, his rifle fell to his feet and his throat was grabbed.
Collins blinked. He moved towards both of them, but was stopped as another blur flew in front of him and stopped. It was the other female walker, and she now stood her ground.
The male vampire just stayed where he was. He felt too scared to move.
“You want this?” Matilda kept her eyes on the wolf. She watched him move. She watched him stop. She didn’t know what to think but that he was coming to the human male too. This was all she saw.
Collins bowed his head to the female vampire standing in front of him and sighed. “You startled me.” This was true. He did not intend to move to the human. Their movement caused the wolf’s eyes to move. His cautious nature acted on its own. It always did. “That’s all you did.” He now held his breath. Inside him, the eyes swarmed. They readied. They moved back.
The young human felt the pressure around his throat. He felt its pain. He felt his wind leave him all too fast. It made it hard to breathe. He didn’t move.
Alice kept her eyes on the wolf.
Her stench flew down his nostrils and into his chest. He nearly gagged from its intensity, but he did manage to keep himself contained. How he did it, he would never know.
Matilda didn’t believe him. “You were going to charge me to get to this.” She was confident with this. She couldn’t see inside this wolf, she didn’t know why, she usually could with anyone, and it made her feel uneasy because of it. She didn’t know what he was going to do.
Collins put his hands to his hips. “I was not.” He looked the young female walker in the eyes in front of him, saw her overwhelming cockiness ooze from them, so he looked back to the obvious leader of this small group. Again, he didn’t come there for this. “I do not wish to fight you. What you do to that is not my concern.”
Kalima didn’t agree. You cannot allow them to kill him my friend. You must never kill a young human blatantly. Only the sick and injured are worthy of such things. The species must be allowed to live.
This surprised him some, but in the end, it didn’t. He knew of the animal’s desires. He knew of the feeling of its pain. He only wished that he knew the reasons for it. He would then understand him better. He was sure of this much.
Matilda laughed. “If you did not wish to fight us then why did you come to us? I have never heard of a wolf backing down. It is against your very nature.”
Alice smiled, showing her fangs.
He looked back to the male vampire and saw the confusion on his face.
Kalima’s eyes moved forward some. There is no way out of this my friend with words. She will not find them to give you peace. She will strike. You cannot trust them.
He blinked. He looked back to their leader. He looked back to the one standing in front of him, and then finished with looking back to the male. Inside, he knew his friend was right. He didn’t know how he knew this, but he did feel the same way too. He felt their intent. He felt their needs. He felt their desire to fight.
Let me come. Let me end this.
He dropped his guard. He dropped his own eyes, as he turned to their leader.
She saw his dark eyes as
they rolled over to a yellow and blazing sheen.
She saw them and knew what was coming next. “Kill him Alice now!” She knew that the wolf was coming out to fight.
Alice heard this and blinked. She didn’t expect it and hesitated some. She would have regretted this if she had lived.
He turned fast. His pale skin faded to an ashen black. Black fur exploded over his face and arms. The shirt he wore split into a dozen strips as it tore. His snout formed long. His canine teeth grew firm. His ears grew tall and pointed at the sides of his face. To all of their surprise, to all of their confirmed horror, he didn’t fall to his hands and knees as other wolves they saw did. He just grew taller. He just grew bigger. He just formed into a large and massive beast.
For Alice only two seconds went by after hearing her order to kill him and the massive clawed human looking hand coming to the left side of her head. It struck her there. It exploded the side of her face as it shattered every bone on the side of her skull. She truly felt nothing after the pain. She just saw only blackness. She just felt her own death.
The wolf Kalima watched what was left of her fall to his pawed feet.
For Matilda, she felt gassed. She felt winded. She now knew why he didn’t fear them. This was no ordinary wolf. This one walked on his hind legs. This one wasn’t brown like all of the others she had seen. This one was different. It was stronger. It was faster. It was far more dangerous too.
She watched him leave poor Alice and move to Martin next.
Like an idiot, like a fool, he just stood there and watched him come straight to his young face. It reached him quickly and then pounced on his chest with equal speed.
He bore down on his throat with an overpowering bite. With equal viciousness, he tore out his throat and nearly removed his head.
Martin died just as quickly. He didn’t fight. He didn’t strike back. He didn’t even move.
Finished with the boy, Kalima stood and turned back.
For the human, he saw nothing at first. All he knew was what he heard. He heard a heavy thudding sound move. He heard a gasp and then another one after that. He heard what sounded like wood snapping and then the sound of something being broken in two. He then felt pain as it raked across his chest.
Matilda watched the wolf, watched this monster, now turn towards her. Seeing it, feeling the full terror for all of it, she knew the human boy was now useless to her. This was no longer the matter of the hunt, but now was a longing for survival. She had to survive. She had to live on. She had to fight this beast for her very life.
She let go of the human’s throat and with her free left hand, extended her claws from the tips of her fingers, and used them as she swiped them across his chest. The boy buckled at the knees from the obvious trauma, and spilled to her feet. Free to do so, she moved with great speed as she charged the wolf.
He saw her come, after the boy fell in front of her. He saw her move with great speed to his chest. He moved faster than even she thought he could move.
He grabbed her with an overreaching and powerfully clawed hand.
She stopped instantly from the impact and found herself with in his right hand. He pulled her up to his powerfully muscled wolf’s snout.
He held her firmly. He snarled with a deep and raspy blow.
She winced. She tried to swing at his black chest but came away with nothing but empty air. She even tried to kick at him, but again she found nothing. He was so massive, his arm was so long, she couldn’t reach him.
Instead, he just squeezed.
“What in the hell are you?” she gasped.
His face snarled. His nose crinkled. His yellow colored eyes sparkled as bright as any full moon ever looked.
He pulled her to his snout as her arms fell limp to her sides. Her legs did nothing but dangle beneath her. She felt helpless. She felt weak. She felt human all over again.
Feeling her body go limp from the lack of oxygen, he pulled her closer to his face. He brought her closer to his snout. He opened his mouth and exposed every tooth.
She knew what was coming next. “Do it.” She readied herself for the bite and the death she knew was coming.
He went in for the kill. He wrapped his teeth around her neck, on the left side of her shoulder where they met, and bit down.
The teeth pierced her tender flesh.
She felt the pinch. She felt the warmth of her own blood as it now streaked down her chest. She then heard her own neck snap.
It sounded like wood breaking off from a tree. It sounded loud. It reverberated all around the powerful beast.
She died. She felt her mind fade, and then felt it turn cold. She saw her world turn as black as the color of his fur.
Feeling her life leave her, he released the bite. She tasted cold. She tasted bitter. She tasted like rotten flesh. He let her go from his grip.
She fell lifeless to his massive wolf’s paws.
Finished with the kill, he watched her lying at his feet, and feeling satisfied, he looked back to the human three, maybe four feet, to his right. He stepped over the body, moved with a thundering stride and came to the feet of the boy. He could see that he was still breathing. He felt his pain. He knew that he wouldn’t last long.
The boy had a deep black colored hair beneath the blue colored cap he wore. His blue jacket, a deep and strong navy blue, was darkened with his blood. He of course could see his yellow colored aura sparkling around him and it lit him like the sun.
He moved in. He stood over him with his massive size. His girth blocked out the moon over both of them. He opened his jaws. He went in for the kill.
“What are you?” The young boy looked up with the bluest of eyes.
Even with his massive shadow over his face, he could see them sparkle, almost shine. It made him stop. He closed his mouth. He watched the eyes. There was something about the eyes, but more importantly, there was something about the blue.
What is it? Collins had to ask. He didn’t understand the stop. He expected the kill. The boy was injured. His life was already beginning to fade. He had also seen what they were. He knew what they could do. He had to die. They didn’t have the choice.
The wolf, Kalima, stood back straight. He suddenly then turned from the boy and walked back to the Nightwalker that he had caught in midair. He looked down at her with troubling eyes.
Collins could feel his pain. He also felt something else. You remembered something. You saw something in the boy. You remembered something about his eyes. He looked familiar to you. The wolf kept so many things to itself. He told him almost nothing. He showed him even less. However, there were times when something happened that he couldn’t hide it from him completely. This was one of those times.
Inside their minds, he saw a young looking man staring back at him. It had to be a long time ago, back in the time of the war that once raged between humans and his kind. He could tell by the clothes he saw the man wearing that it just had to be. The man had deep black hair. He had a pale face, and had true pain on it in spades. He also had bright blue eyes that seemed to sparkle from within themselves like gems being lit up by the sun. It was all such an impressive sight. Thinking back to the human behind him, the boy dying from a blow across the chest, he did look familiar. He looked like the man he knew so long ago. He even heard a tempting name.
Rochie…who is Rochie?
The wolf didn’t answer him. It just took a deep and everlasting sigh. It then turned back to the boy.
He reminds you of him, doesn’t he?
Kalima looked down, and let his eyes slide back to the back part of his mind. He let Collins’ eyes come forward.
He stepped forward and began the change.
Within seconds, he was human again.
You don’t have to hide things from me Kalima. I know of your pain, you told me that much when you found me dangling inside mine. I can help you find the peace that both of us need to find. He saw the face of his beloved again cross his memory. She died so young. They never had t
he chance to start their life when childbirth took her away from him. They never had the chance to live.
Inside his mind, he could hear the wolf cry.
I know the same thing happened to you. I know they took your wife away from you. I know they killed your only child. I know they chased you. I know they caused your pain.
He felt the wolf suddenly fade. He felt it move silently to the darkness of the void inside space and time. He vanished from the light, and thus from anymore talk between them.
He always did this when he felt this pain. He did it again.
I am sorry my friend. I’m sorry for everything. With his friend gone, he turned his attention back to the boy. Even if Kalima would not tell him anything, he did know one thing. He intended something very different with this boy. He didn’t want to kill him. He wanted something that he longed to have back. He would listen to this. He would learn what that was from the boy. If he lives long enough, I just might find out what that is.
The boy looked up. “What are you?” His blood splattered face cringed. The pain settled some. The blood no longer felt as hot against his chest. He didn’t know what not feeling it meant, but he feared it all the same. He feared that it meant that his death was not that far away.
Collins sat down next to the boy. “My name is Collins, Timothy Edward Collins.” He crossed his legs in front of him. He placed his hands on his bare knees. If he were going to get to know this boy, he would start with telling him everything. He no longer had anything to lose. “I was born in Ireland well over a hundred years ago. You met the other half.”
The boy listened. “What are you?”
Collins smiled. In this day and age, a werewolf wasn’t even a thought to anyone let alone to what it meant. Animal was. “I am a person who can turn into a wolf. We are called Walkers, Moonwalkers, because we walk the night. I see with the eyes of the moon.”
Surprising to him, the boy just nodded some. “And what were they? What was with the red eyes and teeth?”
Again the word vampire didn’t exist yet either. “They were what are called Nightwalkers, because they simple walk the night. They are strongest in the shadows, so that is when they chose to hunt.”
Antietam 1862: A Werewolf's Saga Extras Page 2