Cherishing Destiny (A Dangerous Destiny)

by Blakely, Noelle

  Olina rode straight past her village and continued to Syracuse and then to the Mother’s compound at the rehab center. She trembled slightly as she stood before the Mother in the atrium. The Mother sat in her place at the edge of the pool and pushed the powder around in her palm with her index finger. She was looking closely at it and sniffed it. She touched her index finger to her tongue, tasting it. She raised an eyebrow at Olina and nodded in approval. Olina had already told the story, and she had shared her theory, but the Mother had not made any comment. Olina watched as Mother leaned forward and let the pinch of dust in her hand fall to the water where it floated on the surface. The water took on a black color and swirled underneath the surface with and oily looking substance, then the area around the floating powder began to bubble and ripples spread out across the water. What looked like a hand and arm sheathed in an oily, black glove shot from the center of the churning area. Olina thought she heard a voice underneath the noise of bubbling water, but it was nothing she could understand.

  Abruptly, the hand slid back, the water stopped bubbling and moving, it stilled and then cleared as if nothing had ever happened. Mother was staring at Olina, and she was truly frightened but didn’t know why. “The spirits say this Vampire mother is powerful indeed and that the offspring nourished in her womb from that blood mass will also hold considerable power. I have seen what my little Lana can do, I can only imagine that the child of an elder would be formidable. You will take Xavier, the one known as the Chief, to this Greta’s home, and he will track the wolves to their lair. The spirits will reward you for your loyalty and your intelligence, should your theory prove correct.”

  Olina felt as if she had been dismissed, but she couldn’t make her feet turn and go just yet. “Mother, may I ask what will you do with Greta?” She felt she had to at least ask about the woman she had known for more than eighty years.

  “I won’t be doing anything with Greta,” Mother said. “What happens to Greta will be entirely up to her. She is a Were, and if she threatens violence she may die, but if she cooperates with the Chief, she may be spared.”

  “I understand, Mother. I will be ready to leave when the Chief is.” Olina felt as if she pushed as far as she dared, and it would be up to her to convince Greta to be accommodating if she hoped to see the old woman live.

  ∞∞∞

  Mother sent for the Chief and spoke with him alone. “I don’t want to be implicated in this, so it is my intention to send Samuel’s men with you to the Were-wolves. They are Vampires and should be able to hold their own. I will reach an agreement with Samuel ahead of time with regard to the mother and child. He may keep the father. I know that his grudge is with Alexander anyway. I just want the baby and Aurora, if she can be taken alive. An elder is not to be trifled with, and you will not take unnecessary risks with either of the elders. Do you understand?”

  “As you wish, Mother,” the Chief responded without hesitation.

  “Also, you may find the Four Walker there, but your vengeance will not interfere with my plans. If you have to chose, you will chose the infant and save your revenge for another day. Do I make myself clear?”

  This time the Chief paused for just a quick second before answering, “Yes, Mother. I understand perfectly.” He didn’t dare disobey her order, but the thought of sparing the wolf, who had wounded him so badly that Mother had to transplant the eye of a Vampire into his Were-panther body, was irksome, to say the least. His scars had mostly disappeared, but his missing ear and the bright blue Vampire eye next to his Were-panther green-gold one was a constant reminder of his battle with the black wolf.

  “Excellent!” She clapped her hands together for emphasis. “Now send someone to tell Samuel that I need to see him immediately,” she said becoming a cheery old grandmother again, instantly.

  Thirty-nine

  Samuel Gates wanted to ride at the head of the Vampires he was sending against Alexander and the Weres, but he trusted no one with the potion that had to be administered to the council so that he could maintain control of them. He had already had an incident, losing the Vampire, Reginald, when someone else consumed his dosage for a few days. The worst of it was that Reginald broke out a Were spy and killed a guard while helping the beast to escape. Without a tracker, Gates decided that it wasn’t worth the resources to continue the search. Now the tracker was back, but Mother put him in charge. The Chief was another sore spot with Gates, and he was beginning to feel that he was letting too many people get away with too much, that he was being taken advantage of, and that it was going to have to stop.

  He watched as a small army of Vampires rode out on horseback behind the Were-panther. He’ll get his eventually, thought Gates. Mother had given him the information to find Alexander and then informed him that she would be keeping Aurora and that there was a child, and that child belonged to Mother, as well. He had agreed out of necessity at the time, but now he was not so sure he should just hand over a child of an elder. The child was unique in that no other Vampyrum had been born to a Vampire over two hundred years old. Surely the child of an elder, two elders most likely, would be superior to the wild unruly toddlers that were now underfoot everywhere he went. He was in the process of having the home next door renovated to provide a place for the children that was close enough for him to monitor, but far enough that he didn’t have to watch where he stepped in order to avoid squashing one of them.

  Mother would just have to understand that a child with the potential of an elder would have to be studied and protected. He knew that Mother had sacrificed Vampires in the past, but he couldn’t let her sacrifice the Vampyrum. They might be the last hope for the Vampires if he could figure out how to turn them, fully. As he walked to his room deep in thought, he stumbled over a small tricycle in the hallway. Maybe Mother would consider a trade of the one child for any of these others, he thought as he rubbed his shin.

  forty

  Mother was well into her preparations while Gates was whining about his shin. She had heard from two of her sister witches, and they were set up near Chicago. She had been planning this move for some time, but now the timing couldn’t be better. When the Chief arrived with the two prisoners, she would be ready to go. Everyone else was leaving now. Her agents and those of her sisters had been terribly busy. Four large sailboats with crew had been hired to carry Mother and her entourage from Buffalo to Toledo, where her sisters would have an escort waiting to bring them to the outskirts of Chicago. The children and their nurses and nannies had already left with an escort of Warlocks. She and a few practitioners along with about twenty more Warlocks were all that was left, and she intended to be gone with the women within the hour, headed to Buffalo. A dozen Warlocks would remain behind to escort the Chief and his prisoners to the boats when they returned. Before Gates or anyone else was the wiser, she would be long gone with the leverage and power she needed to bargain with her sisters.

  ∞∞∞

  While Mother was riding out to meet the boats, the Chief was circling the little house that Olina had brought them to. He would not underestimate the Were-wolf witch even if she looked like a wrinkled old crone. He shifted and stalked around the perimeter, sniffing the wind and watching the house for any signs of movement. Then he heard it, the tiny crack of a broken twig underfoot, and it was downwind and in the woods. The panther ran on soft, sure paws, flying across the forest floor, weaving in and out of the close trees. He heard the beast ahead running also, no longer worrying about stealth, but still moving with grace, not crashing through the brush. She ran swiftly, but the wolf bitch was old and he caught her, leaping on her back and digging his claws into her hide, sending them both into a tumble. She came to her feet when they stopped and faced him with a ferocious show of long teeth and a growl low in her throat. He shifted just enough to use his voice, but the words still came out sounding as if he growled them.

  “You will not be harmed if you chose to cooperate.” He snarled the words in his cat form with human vocal chords
.

  She followed suit and shifted just enough for speech, as well. “Cooperate with what?” she asked her voice deep and gravelly in the wolf’s throat.

  “You will lead us to the settlement and the Vampire elders there.” His voice was firm even through the distortion of his creature.

  “I will not help you,” she rumbled, leaping onto a boulder half buried in the dirt and baring her teeth. Her hackles were raised, and she was rolling out a loud, fearsome growl that made Olina’s hair stand on end when she heard it clear back at the house.

  The panther did not wait to try further persuasion, he was confident in his ability to track the wolves to their home. Olina had told him about the boy who came twice a week when she was telling him how she estimated the distance to the settlement. He was growing impatient to face Four Walker and find the Vampires.

  Olina listened as the growl turned into a vicious sounding fight. The fight continued for less than a minute when she heard a yelp and then silence. Her eyes were wide and frightened when the Chief stalked out of the woods dragging the body of Greta by her long grey hair. They were both nude. He dropped Greta and dressed in the clothes he left neatly folded by his horse. Olina ran to Greta’s torn body and checked against hope for some life. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she glared at the Chief.

  “Mother said she could be spared. You didn’t have to kill her,” she sobbed.

  “Mother said she could be spared if she was cooperative. I don’t think trying to rip my throat out is cooperative, do you?” He was being facetious but in truth Mother told him that she didn’t care if he killed both old women if they became a problem or a burden.

  Olina ran at him and struck his solid chest with her tiny fists. He grabbed one bony wrist and spun her, pinning the wrist behind her back. She swore at him and tried desperately to remember and speak the incantation of a curse she had in one of her books. He heard the old women speaking the tongue, the one that Mother murmured when she worked her spells, and he reacted with speed. He grabbed her face and head in his hands and snapped her neck with a quick twist. She fell limp to the ground, and he shoved the body away from himself with the toe of his boot. Hearing the language of the incantations scared him. He had seen things in Mother’s service, and he respected the power of the witches. How dare the old woman try to curse him, he thought. He left the bodies for the wild animals and started tracking the wolf boy.

  The Vampires slowed him, and it was nearly dawn when he found the first sign of other wolves crossing the path of the boy with some frequency. He knew he was close, and he halted the Vampires some distance back. From the crossing scents, it was safe to assume that there were watchers posted. He hoped that they would not cross his scent at the edge of their perimeter for a while at least. He left his clothing with the Vampires and shifted to panther. He climbed the first tree he came to and started working his way forward, carefully, from tree to tree. He moved as high up in the branches as he dared, and he tried not to drop leaves and twigs to the ground below that might carry his scent. It was a long, painstaking process, but he eventually came within sight of the settlement and hadn’t raised any alarms.

  He watched as the settlement began to stir for the day and he quickly realized that there were too many Weres to attack the settlement outright. He was going to have to forgo his hoped for a rematch with the Four Walker, and unless he got lucky, he wasn’t sure if he could get both Vampires and the child without alerting the wolves. He watched for over an hour, patiently, and his vigilance paid off. He saw a pretty Were with a young girl that looked to be about the right age. There was something about the child that drew him to her. The Were and the girl moved into the trees, and it appeared that they were digging around the base of the trees, putting something in a basket the woman carried. He moved closer to the pair as silent as a shadow creeping over them. He waited for the Were to move into the right position below him and then his shiny black mass dropped onto her, hitting her with the full force of his weight and muscle. Before she could scream or shift, he crashed her skull into the tree trunk, knocking her unconscious. He knew she wasn’t dead, but he had no time to remedy the situation because the little girl was running toward the settlement and starting to scream. He flew up behind her and shifted as he snatched her up and clamped a hand over her mouth. She struggled and was unbelievable strong for a child of no more than three, he guessed. He could also feel her trying to bite his palm, her little Vampire fangs scratching against the skin of his hand, but unable to find any purchase. He clearly found the right child. He pulled a head scarf from the woman and used it to gag the girl. Then he dragged her up the tree, kicking and squirming. When they were high in the branches, he set her on one and let her go. She had no choice but to cling to the branch if she didn’t want to fall. He ripped a piece of cloth from the hem of her coat and tied it around her wrists. He stuck his head through the loop her arms made and slung her across his back, changing into a panther and leaping to the next tree.

  Destiny squealed behind her gag. Suddenly the man with two different colored eyes was a huge, black cat, and she could only squeeze with her legs to try and hold on. Her hands were tied in front of her and looped around the neck of the panther. She felt so out of control that she tore at the bindings and heard the gratifying sound of tearing cloth. She clutched the fur on the back of the animal’s neck, and as he leapt to the next tree, she pulled her feet up to stand on his back and spring off, catching a branch in her little hands. For just a second, she had looked like a trick rider, standing on the back of a pony. Now, she was dangling from the branch and her little legs couldn’t reach the next one. She had nowhere to go, and her small hands were slipping on the bark. As she lost her grip, the panther was there catching her by sinking his teeth into the chubby flesh of her thigh. She screamed into her gag, but the panther did not loosen his grip. He continued on with her dangling from his jaws that way. Destiny’s pain was excruciating and by the time the panther dropped to the ground in the midst of a bunch of startled Vampires, her leg was a bloody mess, and tears streaked her face.

  “Bind her,” he shouted, stalking off to find his clothes. “Tightly!” he added glaring at the brave three year old. He was back in no time to toss her over the front of his horse and mount up behind her. “The wolves don’t know we’re here yet, and I hope it will stay that way long enough for me to get a head start. You will wait here, and when they discover you, you will hold them off as long as possible. If you can, grab the Vampire elders and take them prisoner.” The Chief rode off at a frightening pace without waiting for an answer from the Vampires. He knew they had no shot against that many Weres, and he just hoped that they would put up enough of a fight to give him a few hours on the pursuers he knew would be coming.

  ∞∞∞

  Ryan walked with Destiny riding on his shoulders until they reached Lily’s greenhouse. Lily was just emerging with a basket of some kind of grassy looking herb.

  “Destiny told me that you two have plans this morning,” Ryan said, lifting the little girl off his neck and putting her down.

  “Oh, no. I totally forgot. Sue Ellen just came and told me that I have a baby to deliver and offered to hold down the fort here for me,” she nodded toward the woman walking around the corner of the house.

  Ryan recognized Sue Ellen as Stephan’s wife, the one who gave him the bathtub so long ago when he and Sara were living with the Lakes in a one room cabin.

  “I told Destiny she could go with me to pick mushrooms so that she could learn the medicinal from the poisonous.” Lily knelt in front of Destiny. “I’m sorry, honey.”

  “It’s okay,” Destiny said, taking Lily’s hand and patting it. They all laughed at her grown up gesture.

  “I can take her,” Sue Ellen offered. “My grandmother taught me mushrooms too.”

  “That would be great,” Lily said, taking the grass from her basket and handing it to Sue Ellen.

  “It’s alright with me. I have plenty to do today,”
Ryan said.

  Destiny smiled at Sue Ellen and took her hand as they walked away toward the trees.

  It was mid-afternoon, when Alex poked his head in at the L.T.’s place looking for Ryan. “Ryan, Aurora says, if it’s not too much trouble, do you think she might get to see her own daughter for a little while today?” Alex said.

  “She’s not with me,” Ryan said, his brow furrowing in worry already. “Sue Ellen took her to pick mushrooms, but they should have been done with that hours ago. Sue Ellen was over at Lily’s helping out because Lily is delivering a baby. Did you check there by any chance?”

  “No, but I will,” Alex answered not nearly as panicky as Ryan was where Destiny was concerned.

  “I’ll go with you to look for her.”

  “I’m sure she’s fine, you’ll see.” Alex said as they walked to Lily’s.

  When they found no one at Lily’s, Ryan shifted and went to track them from that morning. He followed their trail until he found Sue Ellen at the base of a tree, her head bloody and probably fractured. Her breathing was faint and erratic. He howled an alarm from his wolf form, and the settlement came alive in response. They made short work of the Vampires in the woods, but Ryan realized that the Were that took Destiny had at least a day head start. By now he knew from the track that it was the same Were-panther that almost killed him at Alex’s cabin. They all pushed hard to catch up to the panther and the little Vamphyr that had stolen their hearts.