It only took seconds before that sight faded and it was replaced with a normal sight.
Henry spoke what he saw first. “I can see their skin.” He was only a little over a year old in Walker terms, so he could still remember what it was like to see with human eyes. When he saw the colors—when he saw their skin with the lack of heat, he knew that it wasn’t right. In fact, he knew what it meant. “I have human eyes again.” It was too horrific to be true, but it was.
Ramada scoffed, even though she saw it too. “It can’t be.”
The woman with the flowing hair could only smile larger. “Of course it is my sweet young lad.” She never moved. She just stayed where she stood after coming into the room. “In fact, you are all human again.”
Martha’s greatest fears suddenly came true. She hated being human. She hated the fears. She hated the death that would have inevitably come with it.
Ramada was a Walker too long to believe any of this. “That is impossible.”
The woman with the black hair laughed. When she finished it, she felt the need to explain. “Nothing is impossible my dear.” She felt more than pleased with this now—she felt nearly complete. “You can see my flesh. You can see my hair. You can no longer smell every smell. You can no longer hear any sound. You are human. You have returned to the light.”
Martha shook. She felt cold. Gooseflesh flared all over her. She recognized the feeling and it made her shake again. She forgot how terrible it felt.
“What do you want?”
“What I want is to bring you home.” She stepped to the center of the circle of her friends. She stared all of them down. “This is why you must not think too hard about what will happen next.” She watched her people all look up to her at the same time. Matching all of their smiling eyes, she continued, “It is time to be judged.”
Martha watched her closely with tears now streaking down both sides of her face.
Henry felt bewildered and had nothing to say. He just let his now racing warm heart do all of the thinking for him.
“What are you here to judge?” Ramada still didn’t want to believe it, but she was finding it hard to keep doing it. She felt her back begin to ache. She felt the warmth flow through her arms and into her legs. She smelled nothing from the humans around her. She didn’t smell their skin. She didn’t smell their breaths. She could no longer smell the things that she would have normally smelled. She had to be human; this told her everything that she needed to know.
Again, the woman with the black hair laughed with this. Upon finishing it, she stared the three of them down. “We are to judge your worthiness. If we like your answers, you will be given a choice.”
“What choice is that?” Ramada blinked. She felt weak, and now knew that she fully was.
The woman with the black hair nodded to her friends. “You can now choose to join us.”
Hearing this, the humans dropped their dart pistols, re-holstered them back to their belts, and then reached for the real pistols at their sides. They drew them on to the three people they surrounded and took casual aims.
Martha saw the metal of the weapons and knew they were real. She didn’t know how she knew this, she had never seen a real gun before, but she just knew she was right.
Henry only watched the young woman. “What if we don’t choose to join you?”
The woman shrugged as she answered him. “You can die a human’s death.”
Now he began tearing up too. He had just faced death, not a year ago. He had an infection that could never be cured. It would have easily taken his life after a few years. He had heard about the Walkers from a friend, who had become one himself. He didn’t have to hear anything else. He chose to join them, and live with them. He never doubted that choice, and now, hearing this again, having to choose again to join them or die from the illness, he already knew his choice. He would never go back to being human again.
“Never.”
Martha felt her heart warm her blood. She felt her eyes flood with tears.
“We will never join you wretched humans.” Ramada watched her young friends fall to the floor on to their knees. She didn’t. She stood tall. She stood strong. She was still a Walker—at least in her mind. She was still one in her heart.
The woman with the black hair shrugged. “Very well then.” She glanced at her human friends. “You may kill them when ready.”
They all took a deadly aim. Their fingers relaxed.
She turned as several loud popping sounds echoed around the large room. The walls made them sound like a thousand blasts of lightning.
“I have no more time for any of this, anyway.” She left the room and made her way back through the door in which she came.
Another woman greeted her just on the inside of the door.
“El, you did not have to kill them.” Donna felt bad for this. She truly meant it. “How will we find him now?” she had to ask. They had their orders. They needed numbers on their side. As she knew it, killing them was a waste of time. This wasn’t a part of the plan. They needed to find him. They needed to bring him to her.
The woman with the black hair just stared her down. The smile crossing her lips never left them. In fact, it looked stronger than it ever was.
“We accomplish our task better with their deaths. Now the Elders will know of their weaknesses. They will not have the choice now. They will have to seek out the one we want.” She moved on. She walked past her young friend and headed back to the back of the building. She had so much more to do. She had to get to it.
Her young friend just watched her leave, and kept her eyes on the door to the much larger room beyond it.
There, she watched the three Walkers fall to their chests as their blood splattered all around the room. She watched them die. She watched the men around them lower their collective aims.
As for what she heard, she could only hope that she was right. They have now come too far in this for them to turn back now. This night was just the beginning of the end. She feared this, no matter what she told her. All of them did. The monster was going to be coming to them now. He was about to rise. He was about to return to the world. Kalima was about to be awakened and nothing would ever be the same again.
2
They ran across the field. He watched several young boys, maybe in their late teens maybe some older than him, as they showed off their physical prowess to a group of three equally young girls. He watched them watch the boys from the bleachers. He watched the boys as they flirted with the girls. He watched the girls as they laughed at the boys. They all looked flushed. He could see their red cheeks flare with a feeling that he had never had before himself. Watching them, feeling them, seeing the way they acted to each other, it made his own heart sink. It made his own mind hurt. He hated seeing them like this. He hated himself for not being able to share in it with them.
It had only been a year since they came to this quiet and boring little town in northeastern Pennsylvania called Darlington. It was their new home, just like the dozens before it. It felt no different from the others. With every place, they kept to themselves. They didn’t have friends. They rarely left the house. He hated this the most. He hated the isolation. He hated the solitude. He hated what his parents made him do. He hated himself more than he hated them.
“We have to keep moving Casey. We have to keep ahead of them.” His father had told him a hundred times before, after every time he would ask him why they had to move again. Every time, he didn’t understand it. He never understood all of the homes. He never understood all of the towns. When he was younger, it felt like an adventure. Now—it felt like a burden. It made him feel alone. “You are too special for us to take chances. We have to keep you safe. They must never find you. We will never let them take you away from us.”
“But why? Why am I so special?” he would always ask them next, which always felt like a waste of breath. He didn’t feel special. He didn’t feel unique.
“You are my son.” The answer
was always the same.
What in the hell does that mean? He always thought. He never said it. His father just wouldn’t understand him if he did.
Of course, he knew who his father was, and what he could do. He had seen him change. He had seen the yellow of his eyes and the blackness of his fur. He had felt the heat of his body next to his. In some ways, he loved the wolf. He felt safe next to him. That’s what he didn’t understand. His father was strong. He was fierce. He was the strongest of their kind. That was what they told him. So why, why did they have to hide? Why did they have to run? It just didn’t make sense.
“They are dangerous Casey. The Walker world would never let us live together. They fear me. They fear us.”
Sounds like a bunch of crap to me. He kept these thoughts to himself. He didn’t know why. He didn’t fear his father; they kept him protected. They kept him safe. He accepted this, but again, why—why did they have to run.
His mother wasn’t much of a help to him either, even though he knew that she tried to understand him. He of course knew about her powers too.
Why, if they are as powerful as they seem to be, do they not stand up to them? It just doesn’t make sense.
They just didn’t understand. They just didn’t want to hear what he had to say.
He knew his true age. He knew how old he looked. He knew a lot of things, but now, the growing was stopping. No one would know what he really was. It was time to cut the strings. It was time to start a life.
He understood some of the moving, watching him grow as fast as he did had to cause problems out in the human world, he wasn’t stupid, but with it stopping, he figured the moving would stop too. But it didn’t. They just kept running. They kept hiding. He stayed alone.
I can take care of myself. I am strong. I am big. I can fight.
He was larger than most kids were his age. He was tall. He had muscles. He was fit. He could defend himself. He was stronger than all of them.
All I want is to go to school and to have friends. He focused on the group of girls sitting on the bleachers as the boys joined them. They looked so beautiful. They looked so light. They looked so right. I can see right through them. I can feel their hearts beating. I can feel their thoughts.
He could. He did. He just wanted to join them.
Why can’t I have friends? I know they would like me. I’m not that different from them.
Like any boy his age, he knew what he wanted. He knew of the hormones, his mother taught him well with the home schooling, so he wasn’t an idiot. He knew the kind of friends he wanted. If he could just convince them of this, he knew he wouldn’t need any more help.
Why can’t I have a girlfriend? He could. He could feel their hearts beating inside their chests even from this far away. He could feel their eyes on him when they looked at him, and he could almost see what they thought of him too. He knew that he intrigued them. The girls liked the way he looked—yes, he felt this too.
I have to tell them. He had too. It was time for the hiding to stop. It was time to stop the running. I was time to stay where they were. It was time to make a home.
He let go of the fence between the baseball diamond and him. He dropped his arms to his sides. He suddenly felt stronger than ever. He felt determined too.
I am going home and I’m going to tell them that it is time for me to spread my wings. And he didn’t care how they would feel about this either after he told them. He just knew that he had to do it, now or never. It was time to make his move.
He turned, crossed the parking lot of the high school and headed back to the street that went around the front of the school. He walked with power behind his stride. He felt determined. He felt true strength.
He headed home as fast as he could walk.
3
Home has never felt this empty before. Jimmy paced around the living room, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. He could feel his blood burning, almost boiling from within. Casey leaving the house without telling them always did this to him. He just didn’t know how else to feel. The boy is going to get it this time. He can’t keep challenging me like this and expect nothing is going to happen. It is time I set him straight. He looked back to the front door, just to the left of the living room, and to the right of the sofa sitting up against the bay window and wall, and there he stopped his pacing. Only his legs stopped. His mind raced harder than ever. If it weren’t day out, I would turn and hunt him down. I could find him easily. Maybe it would do him good to experience the wolf again and now not in a good way. Maybe then, he would listen to me. It would at least give him something to think about before doing this again. He has to learn how dangerous this can really be.
Rachel had heard enough. “That is it!” She always tried to stay out of her husband’s way when he was in one of these moods, but now, hearing his mind flaring about their son like this, their one and only child, she couldn’t take it anymore. Reading his mind like this was also giving her a headache. Jimmy wouldn’t hurt Casey, she also knew this too, and now, so should he. “If you do not stop this right now, I am going to show you how angry a mother can be when it comes to their child.” She folded her arms over her chest as she stepped through the kitchen doorway behind him.
He could smell her anger. She reeked of a pungent smelling burning hot blade of steel.
“Honey, please.” He didn’t turn to face her. Knowing that she was inside his mind was all he needed to know that he didn’t want to see the look in her eyes. She felt mad enough.
She cut him off. “Don’t you honey me Jimmy?” She uncrossed her arms, and raced her hands to her hips.
She looked bigger when she did that. He didn’t see her do it, but knew that she did by the sounds of the air rushing all around her frame.
He took a deep breath. It made his mind turn cooler, and with it, his hotheadedness went down again too.
She felt him relax. In the years they have been married, he let her see his thoughts. For the most part, she loved being inside his head, it gave her comfort and it made her feel his calming strength. When he turned angry, when the Walker inside him turned stronger, it made her turn away. Feeling the human side of him come back, she calmed right down with him.
“I’m sorry. The boy is out of control. He cannot just head out like this on his own.” This time, he turned around and faced her.
She saw his face. She looked into his mind and suddenly felt a cold feeling course its way through his memories. She knew what it meant. He shaded something from her that he didn’t want her to see. He did that sometimes too. Everyone did, and he was no different.
He shook his head. “We have to stop him from doing it.”
Her hands went down to her sides. “He just went out Jimmy. He has never done anything to make you not trust him.” Sometimes she didn’t know why he acted like this with his son. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she did want to understand it. The two men in her life needed her more than they would ever know.
The shade over his thoughts became as dark as a moonless night.
He shrugged with this. “You know how dangerous the world is for people like him. You know what they can do.” Inside him, he could see himself standing out in the middle of the road as his own adopted mother talked with him about how he wanted to leave. He could see the look on her face. He could hear the pain in her voice. It all started then. Everything happened because he wouldn’t listen to his parents when he had the chance. He should have. So many people would have lived if he had.
Of course, she saw none of this. He wouldn’t let her see the guilt he felt, and the reasons for his really fighting their only son.
She nodded with this. Of course, she understood this. She would never forget it even though she did try to once. But that was another choice for another time.
“You know that was a long time ago Jimmy. So much has changed. With Devish gone, and with Sharlia now controlling that world, everything is different. We have nothing to fear now.” He should have known t
his too. Why he didn’t, she could just believe that there was something else there. It is the shadow that crossed his mind. It is there. He is hiding the truth to me about what this really is. She didn’t hate him for doing this. She just accepted it and always moved on.
He did know this, but if only he could tell her. He just didn’t want to burden her with such things.
“I know but there is still evil around us.”
She thought about this some before answering him. “Don’t you think you are overreacting about all of this?” she thought she’d ask, so she did.
He shook his head. “You know what happened all of those years ago.” He could see his daughter’s beautiful round face. He could see her long and flowing black hair. He could still hear her voice inside his head. With all of her still there, still deep inside him, he just knew he was right. “You remember as I do all of the pain they caused. You know what happened when they discovered her gifts and what she could do.”
She now figured she knew why he blocked her the way he did. It was Sima. It was always his greatest loss.
“I know Jimmy.” She couldn’t help him with it, so she shifted her own focus back onto their son. “Casey has shown nothing. He may be safe. They may never want him. He has nothing to give them.”
He didn’t agree. “I showed nothing until I reached his age. He may yet show his true powers.” He was right about this. She, and his son, had to know this too. He knew this much.
She took a deep breath with hearing this. Again, she could do nothing, but to live in the here and now.
“We will deal with that when it happens, Jimmy. Until then, until it happens, we can’t just keep him in the shadows. We have to let him live his life.”
He bowed his head with this. Maybe she didn’t understand after all. “That is what I’m afraid of.” He caught something just then on the wind. A strong lavender scent coursed through his nose, and he could tell that it came from the front door to his right. He knew who was home, and by the lingering effect of the smell, who had been listening to them for some time. “You can come in Casey.” He turned to the door after giving his wife a slight nod.
The Puppets and the Strings (A Werewolf's Saga Book 7) Page 2