The Beast Inside

by Monique Singleton

He just had to find a way to achieve what seemed to be impossible.

  Oh, how he loved a challenge.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Ever since I had been in England, the bloodlust had increased exponentially. I guess it was the proximity of Azazel. That, and the tension that a potential meeting with someone like me brought. It was so double. I was torn.

  Here I would finally be able to meet someone who I had a connection with. Another being who is immortal like me. Who was part of whatever it was that I was destined to be. This whole Apocalypse thing was still so weird. I couldn’t get my head around it. It frustrated me too. Not only because it was so surreal, but also because it was something that I had no say in. It had happened to me, was still happening to me, and what I wanted was not in any way part of the equation. Being the control freak that I am, this was a no-go. I didn’t like being controlled. It was against my nature, even my current nature. Or maybe even especially my Primal nature.

  Being such a strong and powerful creature when changed, gave me an even greater feeling of control. There was basically nothing in this world that could stop me. That was one of the lessons that I had taken back with me from Nepal. Probably not what the Watchers wanted me to learn, but that was their problem.

  I am in essence a super being. Untouchable. Unstoppable.

  So why was everyone trying to control me?

  The Watchers were getting on my nerves. Oh, not Panat, he was getting under my skin. Which was probably worse. But I’ll get back to that later. No, I’m talking about characters like Joseph. He was just too slick. In my experience—If something feels too good to be true, it usually isn’t. There was something about him, and the others in Holland, that just got the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up. I listen to my instincts. They’re good. A lot better since they were joined by thousands of years of Primal experience.

  The way that Joseph tried to manipulate me in subtle ways really irritated me. He didn’t so much order me around or tell me what to do, he just managed to steer all conversations in a certain direction that made it almost impossible not to do what he set out to organise. He made you want to do what he wanted, or at the least he made it extremely difficult to say no. There have been times when we just arrived in Holland, that both Panat and I agreed to things that we later couldn’t explain why. I guess I saw the manipulation sooner than Panat. He’s quite the trusting type. It suited him, but on the other hand it’s not really a good idea. Not in this world. It means that someone, or probably a lot of people, will take advantage of you.

  It took quite a lot of convincing to get him to see the possibility that he might be played. It dismayed him. He had known all these people for years, his whole life actually. It must have taken a lot out of him to acknowledge that he might not be able to trust some of them anymore.

  Me, I’m paranoid. I don’t trust anyone. So not trusting the Watchers came naturally for me. No, that’s my cynicism talking. I have just experienced too much. If you live forever, you experience a lot of shit. See a lot of bad in people. That makes me what I am now—Cynical and unforgiving.

  Anyway, the way things were unfolding in England was stretching my patience and my trust to a breaking point. If Joseph wanted to know so much about what Azazel was doing, why didn’t he come along as well? Instead of getting us to do his dirty work. And then, there was that nagging question I had at the back of my mind. If he was the leader of Azazel’s clan, and Aze killed most of them, why hadn’t he killed Joseph?

  There was something definitely off about all this. I could feel it in my bones. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was exactly.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The relationship between Anadi and Panat blossomed, even though they tried to fight it.

  It was not a good time. And an even worse idea. But that was moot, because there were emotions and feelings involved here. The head was apprehensive. The heart was confident and optimistic.

  And as it often does—the heart won.

  Anadi found a peace with Panat that she had never experienced before. Not even with her husband, way back when she was still human. And definitely not since her transformation into whatever she was now. Panat helped her to learn how to control her frustration through meditation. She could achieve instant peace by returning to her own special oasis of tranquillity. She knew that it wasn’t a real place, but that didn’t make it any less effective. The meditation acted like a kind of hypnosis. It made her feel as though she was there, in Shanti. Whatever it was, it worked. She finally had a way of letting off steam without killing anyone.

  Though it wasn’t only the meditation. It was Panat as well.

  He was totally smitten.

  From the first moment he saw her, he had been filled with a sense of awe.

  His whole life he had been moulded and formed to serve the clan. The clan itself was in the service of Nature. Their only reason for living was to keep an eye on their charge. And that was her. His teachers had instilled a feeling of reverence for Anadi. Even though they had also stressed that he would never meet her. Their job was one from a distance. They were not permitted to make contact. Only if the future of the world hung in the balance.

  No one ever contemplated that she would contact them. That she would learn of their existence, let alone find a way to their headquarters. But that was exactly what she had done. She had walked in on a totally astounded community. Throwing them into complete confusion.

  There was no guidebook for this. No predesigned protocol of how to deal with the Primal force face-to-face. Theirs was a subtle way of influencing her. Nothing overt, just laying the path that she could follow. There was never ever direct contact.

  This—now—was not in the manual.

  Neither was falling in love.

  It was the furthest thing from his mind when she walked up that mountain. He was not looking for romance. Sure. he had had his share of love in life. Though he had never started a family of his own, he knew what love was. Knew what it felt like to feel the total fulfilment of a soul-mate. Though brief, no more than fifteen years, love had given him an optimistic look on life itself. Losing her had not tempered his optimism. He loved life and he loved people, though he had resigned himself to the certainty that his wife had been his one true love and he lived on the memories.

  That was until Anadi came.

  The feelings he had for her were the same, even deeper. It felt wonderful. She rocked his world. He had no idea where any kind of relationship would go, but he was a patient man. And he had yet to find out what her feelings were. He knew she liked him, but whether there was more than that, he had no idea. So for now, just being with her was enough.

  Anadi, on the other hand, struggled with her feelings. After the disastrous relationships of the past decennial she had renounced love. It hurt too much. Sure, it felt good for a moment. But there was too much involved—commitment, danger, loss. It all ate away at her. She had feelings—too many to be true. But it was easier to ignore them, or at least push them away. Feelings were dangerous. Before you knew it, they dictated how you lived, how you acted and how you hurt.

  But there was that nagging voice at the back of her mind. The heart’s voice. It spoke of love. It spoke of soul-mates. Finding oneself in the togetherness, even if it was temporary. Love would endure. It would sooth the loneliness that had been eating away at her soul ever since she had killed Alex.

  Her resolution changed every day—love or not. She was equally unsure about either option. There was no choosing. She decided to just wait and see. Even though she secretly knew that this swayed the odds in favour of the heart.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  We had been in Canterbury now for four days.

  There was no real progress. It was sit and wait. And you know how bad I am at that. I was rapidly going stir crazy.

  The hotel was great, and we did get out every now and then, but always with Sarah and or Gideon. There was no privacy and as expected, Sarah was reall
y getting on my nerves. It was hard to ignore the temptation of just killing her while she slept. Now that was a thought that brought a smile to my face.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  There was a traitor in the ranks.

  Both Panat and I were sure about it. It was all too much of a coincidence. Azazel stayed one step ahead all the time. He had to have inside information. Of course, he could read minds, but he would have to have contact with someone for that and no one was in active contact with him. At least no one that we knew. That meant that it had to be a mole. Someone who didn’t want to be known.

  How could we find out who it was? Who could we trust?

  I was completely confident of Panat. There wasn’t any doubt about his loyalty. If anything, he was naive. Blindly trusting. And he was also in love with me. He would never do anything to endanger me, even if it cost him his life.

  Then who was it?

  Was it one of the people here with us in Canterbury? Or someone back in Holland?

  And how were we going to find out.

  Yesterday at the end of the afternoon, Panat and I took a walk around the old town centre. Just the two of us. Gideon wasn’t too happy about that, but we had insisted. We needed some time apart from our travelling companions. The trip from Nepal to Holland had forged a bond between us. We had fallen into a comfortable relationship on the way. We missed the closeness. At least I did. Sometimes I even resented the fact that others were around all the time. Not just people. Ok, that in itself was taxing to me, but companions around every minute of the day and night was just too much.

  The sleeping arrangements left little space for privacy. So we had pushed until they reluctantly agreed to let us leave alone.

  I think Sarah had more issues with private time between Panat and I, than Gideon. He was looking at the security aspects. Sarah was just jealous. She had a soft spot for Panat. That was obvious. And I was competition. She saw that he more than liked me. Everyone did. And it made her resent me. You can imagine the atmosphere in the room she and I shared. She bitched at me, and I ignored her. That didn’t go down well either. But it was of no concern to me. I was there to get a job done. And she was just a bump on the road to my objective.

  As Panat and I walked through the small streets away from the Miller’s Arms, we moved closer to each other. I put my arm through his and we walked past one of the many chapels and into the shopping street. There were a lot of people around and we could hear many different languages, though English and French prevailed. Canterbury was still a popular tourist town. We blended in with the crowds and walked past the stores—window-shopping.

  At the French cafe—the Cafe Rouge—we found a table outside, under the deep red parasols and sat down to watch the people walk by. It was so relaxing to finally be on our own. Panat took my hand and brought it to his lips where he softly kissed my fingers.

  ‘Finally,’ he said. That brought a smile to my lips. He had that effect on me. ‘I thought we would never get rid of them.’ He joked.

  ‘I was just about ready to jump ship.’ I answered, leaving my hand in his. It felt good. Well, there goes my resolution not to get emotionally involved. ’They are really getting on my nerves.’

  ‘They? Or Sarah?’ he laughed. Was it that obvious?

  ‘Hmm.’ I said. ‘That clear, huh.’

  ‘Very.’ His smile lit up the place. ‘You don’t like her and it’s mutual.’

  ‘I couldn’t care less about her.’ I answered. ‘There wouldn’t be an issue if she just stayed out of my face. But no, she has a massive chip on her shoulder and projects it on me.’

  ‘Understandable.’ He said surprising me. ‘She knows that I have feelings for you and it doesn’t sit well with her.’

  ‘You know that she’s carrying a torch for you?’

  ‘Yes, she has for a long time.’ His face became serious. ‘I have told her time and time again that I am not interested, but she obviously doesn’t take “NO” for an answer. It irritates me.’

  ‘You? Irritated?’ I said in mock horror, trying to lighten his mood. It worked, he smiled again.

  ‘Yes me. That’s a side you haven’t seen too much of yet. But get used to it. Even I get irritated.’ We both smiled.

  We sat on the terrace for almost two hours. We talked and just enjoyed each other’s company. We fell back into our easy way of communicating, where a few words were enough. Our’s was an easy connection. We said more without words.

  ‘So.’ Panat said. ‘What do you make of all this?’

  I thought for a moment. Trying to get the strange feelings of unease that I had to fit any words.

  ‘It creeps me out.’ I finally answered. ‘We are going into something that we have no idea of.’ He nodded. ‘That’s not new, that I don’t know what will happen.’ I continued. ‘It’s just that this whole thing with the Watchers, Joseph and most of all with Azazel is so unreal and so threatening, that it’s getting to me,’

  ‘It’s more than just the danger.’ Panat has this uncanny way of saying out loud what I was thinking. We are so much on the same frequency that we practically know what the other is thinking. Nothing physic there, just connected.

  ‘Yeah. Danger I can handle. But this is just too much. I can’t get a handle on it. And then there’s the feeling of deja vu. It’s like I’ve been there before. In the contest with Azazel I mean. But I haven’t. So where does this “memory” come from?’

  He pondered that for a few minutes. ‘Maybe it is the Primal thing’ he offered. ‘Maybe you do share memories on a higher level. Could be that there is a connection there that we don’t know about.’

  ‘You know it’s all so strange that that doesn’t even sound far-fetched.’ His words rang true somewhere deep inside of me.

  ‘Is there anything else you feel or see that you cannot place from your own memories?’

  ‘Just the feeling of having gone through it all before and the dread of meeting him again. He really got to her you know.’

  ‘Yes, he sent her over the edge. And ultimately that made her kill herself.’

  ‘So, what if he has the same effect on me?’ Maybe that was what was really bothering me.

  ‘He won’t.’ Panat seemed so sure. ‘You have an advantage that your predecessor didn’t. You know him, and of him. This has happened before so you are forewarned. You have a much greater control over your urges than she did. We know that from the streams and films that we have of her, and also what I heard from my father.’

  ‘You have films of her?’ I was so surprised. Strange really. I mean, she died in the past century, they had films and technology then, so why was I so surprised.

  ‘Yes.’ He said sheepishly. ‘I just never thought to show them to you.’

  ‘Who was she? What did she look like?’

  He smiled. ‘She was beautiful.’ He took my hand and brought it to his lips again. ‘Though not as beautiful as you.’ He made me smile again. ‘She was African, a statuesque woman from Ethiopia. Truly magnificent. But she wasn’t as strong as you. Not emotionally or mentally. She didn’t have the grip on the Primal as you do. I think that the years had also gotten to her. She was a lot older than you are. Had seen so much. I can imagine that she was tired too, of all the suffering that she had seen. That probably made her more susceptible to Aze.’ He folded both of his hands over mine and continued. ‘Hers was a difficult life. She lived through many centuries of war, strife and brutality. She was a princess, a slave and a fugitive,’ he hesitated for a moment. ‘She was a mother.’ He added softly gauging my reaction. When none came, he continued. ‘She had four children as far as we know. One before she became the Primal and three in the centuries after that.’

  ‘When she was Primal?’

  ‘Yes.’ Panat knew that I had never had children. I had told him that it was a choice that I had made. But he was sensitive to my feelings anyway.

  ‘Her children were not immortal. Not even the ones she had as the Primal. She lost them. And not o
nly them, she lost her grandchildren and great grandchildren.’ That registered.

  ‘She kept on losing.’ He nodded. ‘That must’ve been terrible.’ I sympathised with her. Her loss must have eaten away at her.

  ‘I believe that she was unstable when she went up against Azazel.’ Panat said. ‘That and encountering someone like herself pushed her over the edge.’

  ‘She also killed her lover though, didn’t she?’ I asked, though I already knew the answer.

  ‘Yes, she did. In the chaos that ensued when she lost control. That was what allowed Aze to escape.’ He looked at me intently before he added ‘But you won’t.’

  He knew that this was one of the things that had stopped me from deepening our relationship. The conviction of my self-control that he emanated was almost enough to convince me.

  Almost……

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  ‘What are we going to do about the mole?’ Panat asked.

  ‘Who do you think it is?’

  ‘I seriously don’t know. You?’

  ‘The hairs on the back of my neck say it’s Sarah. But that could also be my dislike speaking.’

  ‘Jealous?’ He joked.

  ‘Hardly.’ Then serious again ‘there is something not right with her. Besides her infatuation for you. She’s playing a role. It’s hard to see who and what she really is. She’s hiding something.’

  ‘Hmmm. I get what you’re saying. But I’ve known her for a long time. She can be very obnoxious at times. But that doesn’t make her a traitor.’ I grudgingly had to agree.

  ‘Thing is, I’ve known a lot of them for such a long time that I can’t imagine anyone betraying us to Azazel.’

  ‘I think that betraying might not be the right word in this context.’ I said. ‘Don’t forget that he was their subject for hundreds or even thousands of years. They have a loyalty to him too. I can imagine that for some, that devotion runs even deeper than to their fellow Watchers. And me, well I don’t really warrant their loyalty because as Primal I already tried to kill him once. And they know that I’m going to do it again, only finish it this time.’