Kenar looked up to him as he stood in front of him. “I no longer see his thoughts Rochie. He has blocked me from seeing them.” He scoffed some at this. Not just for what Rochie said, but also for what Kalima has done too. He hated not knowing what was going on, but at the same time, he did understand it. In this part, Rochie was right. More was going on that he did not understand himself.
Robert did not like the sounds of this. He did not understand it, but he did hate it. “Why? Why wouldn’t he let you see him anymore?” It meant that they were now blind somewhat, something, which Kalima never let them be before. He always kept them in the loop. He always told them his plans. Before, he did everything he could to win their trust, so what was different. What changed? What went wrong?
Kenar already believed he knew. “He is trying to understand his thoughts Rochie. He is trying to understand himself.” This was the only explanation for what he was able to see before Kalima blocked him. Nothing else made sense, so it had to be it.
Robert did not agree with this at all. Kalima understood completely what he was, he always did. “He’s hiding something Kenar. That’s why he ran out on us. It has to be. He’s purposely keeping us in the dark. Why he is, I don’t know.” He turned back to the window and pouted some to himself as he looked back outside. He actually didn’t agree with what he just said, and this explained the pout. He did trust Kalima. He trusted him in what he had to do, but not knowing what that was, was just starting to get to him. In fact, it seemed that it was getting to him more than he originally thought. “I’m sorry Kenar. I’m just frustrated.” He turned back.
Kenar nodded. “He is hiding something, but I don’t think it’s because he wants to keep something from us, but for others that may see it.” He shook his head. He has thought about this for some time, did not really agree with it, but now hearing himself saying it, he did. He understood how right it now felt.
Robert nodded with this. “Devish?” He looked down at the floor. The hardwood glistened some with the setting of the sun and it made the knots in the wood stand out against his black leather shoes. “He’s trying to keep Devish in the dark.” Hearing this, it suddenly made sense. “Devish could never hear his thoughts. Rana either. They can however hear us.” He spoke that sense out loud and with doing so, it made everything clearer. It also turned his stomach some. Kalima knows a lot more than he did before. Why? What did he learn? What does he know? Not knowing himself was enough. It left so much to the wind. It left so much that could happen that he could not help himself but to feel this way. He did not have the choice, and he hated that.
Kenar nodded. “It makes sense. He has a plan Rochie. He must. It makes sense to keep us in the dark. It makes sense to keep everything to his self. Without it, it would make everything worse.”
Robert nodded harder as he looked back up. “If that’s true then we have to stop thinking so much about all of this.” He looked to the window, moved to it, and stopped right in front of it. He put both hands to the bottom of the frame and leaned against it with all of his weight. The cool breeze of the trees now caressed his face with a gentle streak.
Kenar nodded and took a deep breath. “You are right. We have to keep to what we did before. Stay to that.” This too made sense. Without knowing what was going on, and with Kalima doing what he was, it’s the only thing that did.
Robert looked back, but kept his hands on the sill. “But why?” He let go. “Why would Kalima want us to do what we did before? That doesn’t make any sense.” He now felt the need to cross his arms over his chest so he did so. He needed to hug himself it seemed. “Devish knows what he did. He knows what happened. Why repeat something that he already knows?”
Kenar bowed his head. “It does to him.” He looked back up. “So does Kalima. He obviously wants us to do just that. He has his reasons for it, and we have to have faith in that.”
Robert nodded. “Then that’s what we have to do. We should gather our forces together, and head out to the forest just before the walls. Plan to attack them just before dawn.” He saw everything in his head. He remembered the plain before the walls. He remembered all of the Walkers that gathered on the plain. The fight on that field would forever haunt his soul and mind. It lasted so long. It was also so bloody. It was a painful day, and he just shuddered with thinking about how it would be that way again.
Kenar stood up. “Rochie?” He moved to him and stopped right in front of him. With the moon beginning to rise, he could now see everything and everyone again, and it made him relax because of it. “Stop planning.” He of course could see what he was thinking. He could not do it. He knew it, but so should Rochie. If not, he had to remind him quickly before it was too late.
He looked up to him with wide eyes. He of course knew better than this, so he did what he heard. He stopped his plans. He stopped thinking as best as he could.
“That’s better.” Kenar smiled and turned back to the chair. He sat back down. “Now we wait for everyone to join us.” He crossed his right leg over his left.
Robert turned back to the window and looked back outside. He forced his mind to go blank. He stopped thinking. He tried to stop thinking of her. He had to do it. The night was coming fast. It would be dark again soon enough.
21
He felt better than he has in a long time. Being this close to all of them again always did. After the hunt, all of them built a fire and huddled around it with pride swelling through their hearts.
Jimmy smiled as he watched all of them sit.
Sasha felt the same way as he did. She felt free again. She felt right being within a group. “How long have all of you been out here?” She watched Cassandra sit next to Jimmy. She sat on his opposite side. “How have you managed to keep hidden from everyone for all of these years?”
Cassandra laughed some with this. “Humans don’t believe in us. Walkers don’t care.” She leaned back some while she was still on her knees.
Sasha shrugged. “That doesn’t make any sense. Someone should have seen you or saw something.”
Cassandra sighed some. Quite frankly, she did not care about any of this. What had been done was done. “We keep to ourselves. We always have.”
Sasha nodded. She could understand this, so she stopped with the questions.
Cassandra turned to Kalima and watched him closely. She had other thoughts on her mind, and they all had to do with him. “What happened to you Kalima? Why do you look somewhat different from what I remember you?”
Everyone heard this, and turned to him too, all at the same time.
He poked the flames with a long stick, as he answered her. “I grew old after I met you. I also grew tired. Knowing this, feeling my body break, I realized that I had to move on. I couldn’t fight him if I didn’t. I just wouldn’t be strong enough to face him as an old man.” He stared at the flames. He loved fire. It made him feel relaxed. It also made him feel calm, especially after a long hunt like this. Now, he felt better than ever as he watched the flames burn.
Sasha watched him too. She too wanted to know more about everything that happened. Some things, she just did not understand. How one like him could pass on their souls always have, and she figured that they always would.
Cassandra obviously did too. “What do you mean? I thought that we could heal from anything. Why couldn’t you?”
He continued poking the fire. His thoughts seemed to melt some by its heat. It always did. “I was not able to heal from age.” He looked at her calmly. His mind flew to the memories that drove his answers. As he spoke, he could see the pictures of that past. They were as clear as they ever were. “I have lived for a long time. After I left all of you, I wandered everywhere. I refused to change. The wolf refused to put my body through it.” He looked back to the fire and noticed that his stick was now on fire at its tip. The flow of the flame blazed his mind. “We age faster when we don’t or can’t change. Eventually, I grew too old to be able to do it.”
Sasha heard this and her mind wa
ndered right along with his. “Why did you refuse to change?” She had trouble understanding this. Again, she wanted to know. Wolves are forced to change at every full moon. Knowing this, why didn’t he. Again, she just did not understand any of this.
“All of you will learn this with the passage of time that eventually you too will have trouble changing as you age. Your body will burn. Your muscles will ache. As you feel it, the wolf will stay inside you.” He blew out the mini torch that he just made on the end of his stick. “The wolf will not come out if it thinks it will harm you like that.”
Sasha agreed with this. Wolves could never change when they were injured. The aches and pains of age must prevent it as everything else does. It made sense, so she accepted it with a simple shrug.
Cassandra understood this too. “So is this why you look different?” She watched him put the stick back into the fire. “How did you do that?”
He nodded. “To do what I must do, I have to face him with all of my strength. When I realized that, I knew what I had to do. I had to find another body that would make me strong again.”
Cassandra looked at all of the others around the fire, saw the looks of wonder on all of their faces, and looked back to Kalima again. “Does that mean that all of us can do that? Does it mean that all of us can pass on our souls?” She truly felt intrigued by this simple thought. She of course knew none of this and it showed. Hell, none of them did.
He looked up to her and smiled. “I’m not sure really.” He looked at Sasha and then back to the fire again. “I am a Wanderer. I am the child of a human and a Blood Walker. I knew that because I was I would be able to pass on my soul to another person. I just wasn’t sure about the wolf.” He looked back up to Cassandra and saw the look of confusion now cross her face. He understood the look. “Wanderers have the ability to be reborn. We can pass on ourselves to another body and thus live again, so I knew that I would. But being a Walker I wasn’t sure if the wolf would pass on with me, so I bit another and gave him the wolf. I couldn’t be sure if it would work, but with me being here again, I guess it did.”
Sasha nodded. “That’s why you passed the wolf to Collins.”
He looked up to her and smiled with a heavy nod. “I found Collins when I knew my body would not survive, so I decided to give him my gift. I gave him the wolf. I hoped that he would then have a part of me that would recognize who I was when I found myself again. When he found me again, he returned him to me, so I gave me back the wolf. It worked. I am whole again.” He looked back to Cassandra and smiled. She looks more confused than ever. “I can’t explain all of it, I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.”
Sasha nodded with all of this. She continued trying to understand, and she thought that she was getting close to it. “Is that why you finally died? When you changed with him, the wolf killed you?”
He nodded with a heavy bow. “It was the last time I could. I waited until I knew that I found the one I needed, so I died. The wolf killed my weakened body.”
Cassandra nodded. She thought that she now understood.
Sasha had more to ask, so she did. “How do you know that you’re Devish’s brother?”
He turned to her next. “He did.” He saw that day flash again in his mind. He saw Devish tell him what he already knew. When his mother died, he lived with humans. They told him what he was. They told him who his parents were and what that meant. When Devish told him, he already knew that it was true.
She shrugged with this. “I don’t understand.”
He looked back to the fire. He looked back to the stick, and noticed that it was again on fire. “I don’t remember my parents. As I have said before, my father died before I was born. My mother died not long after that. I was raised by humans, humans that took care of me as one of their own. One day, we were attacked by a pack of wolves. They had been raiding the village for years, but they always avoided me, I don’t know why, I think they knew who I was, but that time, they just didn’t. As they attacked us, I changed to protect an old man that was cornered by them near a tree. I killed most of them, but the others ran off. I saved the village, but seeing what I was, the humans forced me out. I left them. I left my family, and went out on my own. I found her not long after that.”
Sasha heard this and needed to come in. “Is that when you met Rachel?” She swallowed. “Or whatever she was called back then.” She giggled some too.
He shook his head. “Her name was Diona. She lived in a small valley on the other side of the mountains. Of course, she didn’t know what I was, or at least at first.” He felt tears now beginning to fill in his eyes. He let them come. “We fell in love instantly. We settled down. We had a daughter named Sima.”
Sasha could feel his pain. She felt for him like never before.
He took a deep breath as he found it hard to breathe. After he finished it, he began again. “One night, a man found me. He told me that his name was Rochie and that he was a Wanderer. He could feel my gifts. He could tell that I was different, and because of this, he knew I was special. He knew that I could help them.”
Sasha nodded. “That’s when everything started for you.” She then bowed her head.
Cassandra now also had tears in her eyes. She could not help herself.
He nodded, agreeing with this. “Rochie tried to convince me to join the war. He wanted me to join with the other Wanderers and fight the Walkers. I didn’t. I couldn’t leave Diona and Sima. I didn’t want to get involved. Quite frankly, I didn’t care about it. I didn’t care about the war. I didn’t care about the pain. Not long after he left, they came. The humans came for me.” He watched the fire burn his stick halfway towards his right hand. He let it come. “I was out. I was away from our home. I was tilling the farm, that small patch of nothing important when they attacked her.” Tears now soaked his face. “When I got back, my baby girl was gone. My Diona was dying. She died in my arms.” He swallowed hard and long. “Well…” He shoved the stick into the fire and slapped his hands to his bare knees. “…Devish came to me and offered me vengeance. He told me who I was. I accepted it, because I already knew.”
Sasha shrugged with this. “Are you sure? Can you possibly trust him? Can you trust him that he was telling you the truth?” She saw Devish again as he attacked her. She saw Brandon lying on the floor after he tossed her through the hole from the basement and she landed beside him. She saw his lifeless face. She saw the blood. She saw everything again, and with it, she would never trust a damn thing he would ever tell her—not after what he did to her—to him—to her beloved Brandon.
He wiped the tears from his face. It felt so wet that it took several swipes to do it before it felt dried. “I am a Wanderer. We are born as the offspring of the Walkers. I am what I am.” He finished and grabbed his knees with both hands. He then swallowed again.
Sasha nodded with this. “I understand.” She did. She knew some of this, not much, but it was enough so she did.
Cassandra nodded too. She also had other things on her mind. “So how are we going to do this?” It was time to get to doing it too.
He finally breathed with hearing this. “We head over to meet up with the others tomorrow morning. They should be here by now. Sasha and I are going there to meet with them.”
Cassandra shrugged. “What about us?” She looked around the campfire and back to him again.
He looked to her and then went back to the flames. “You are going to the forest on the other side of the hills. You will wait there for the sign to strike. I can’t have you show yourselves until that time.”
Cassandra and her friends felt confused with this.
So did Sasha. “Why not have all of them come with us?” She again, did not understand this. They were stronger together. Those standing against them would never have the chance.
Jimmy knew that she would not understand, but this was the point. “Walkers don’t know they exist. It’s an advantage that I won’t give up.” He turned to Sasha and smiled.
She did
understand this, so she nodded.
So did the others.
The fight was coming and it was time to get some rest. “We should call it a night.” Jimmy stood up. He walked over to his clothes that he had piled up next to a large oak tree, and immediately he started getting dressed.
The others watched him do it, but only Sasha joined him. She too got dressed.
When they finished, he turned back to the fire. “Sleep, and get ready for tomorrow night, just before dawn. Wait for the call.”
Cassandra nodded.
All of them did.
Seeing this, he turned back to Sasha and gave her a smile. It was time to leave. They had a long walk to reach the cabin, and it was time to get to it.
22
The day ended and night came in softly. The moon lit up the sky. Sharlia and her group hunted for the first time in days. Brandon went with her. It was his first time doing it too. He had never hunted with his kind before, and to say that he liked it would have been an understatement. The truth was it blew his mind. The trees smelled like life. The deer they hunted smelled beyond wonderful. The air felt like silk cloth caressing his skin. It felt better than anything he had ever felt before in his life. When they finished, they headed back to the small cabin in the woods.
Arriving, full of live, full of power, they came to the porch together. This is when they caught the heavy stench of must coming in on the air. It came strong like fire. It came like vengeance for a glorious mind. It came like the sun burning your flesh.
“Someone is coming.” Jason was the first to say what everyone already knew.
Some of them all perked up. Some let their eyes flare to red. They prepared themselves for a fight that they thought was about to come to them.
A Werewolf's Saga Books 4, 5, & 6 (A Werewolf's Saga Boxed Sets Book 2) Page 53