by L. A. A. Law
He stutters. “What...what did you just...how did you do that trick?”
“Here drink this. It was no trick, I’m a werewolf and vampires do exist. The family really is a family of vampires and they have Julianne and Paul. They also have Mia’s son and some of her friends. They have killed Charlotte, Steve and Pauline. They can do things that even I never thought possible and now two of them could be here and they are pretending to be members of Mia’s family, they are planning on trying to kill them all, just the way they have taken out other families in the past. We need your help to save her family, my family and anyone else who may try to go against them for their atrocities. Kenneth, you are the only one I can trust to do this, you are the only one that they would not be able to detect and they would never suspect a priest of getting involved with something like this.” Grant’s desperation rings through his impassioned plea. “You could go and contact Mia’s family without anyone being suspicious. Besides, isn’t it a priest’s job to help preserve life? If you don’t help us, I can assure you that many lives will be lost.”
The moments of silence overwhelm me. I’m not even aware of how much I am thinking about Jacob until I hear his plea.
“I’m telling you that I don’t know exactly how it happened, it just did”
“You will tell us little boy how you possess such power and how we can control it! Maybe a few days without food and water will change your mind. Throw him in the dungeon with the others. We still have to check to see if we can find his mother’s body or if the wolves have her. If she is still alive, we have to make sure that they understand that we have some of theirs and that any interference will mean the immediate death of those in the dungeon and then their pack.”
Grant shakes me, breaking my connection. “What happened to you?”
“They’re alive!”
“Who”
“The children and my friends, but I heard one of them threatening not only them but your pack. They are not sure if I’m alive or dead, but they plan on getting a message to your pack that if they help me, your children will die and so will the pack.”
Kenneth interrupts us. “Grant what’s going on and what is she talking about?”
“She has a connection to her son that is captured and heard the children being threatened.”
Kenneth’s boisterous voice makes me jump. “I don’t know what type of game you are playing or why you are trying to trick me, but you need to stop this and leave now.”
“Kenneth, this is no game I assure you and what I did was no trick. In fact, I will transform again and you can even stroke my fur and see my teeth. I swear to you that I am not playing a game and neither is she, but if you don’t help us and do it quickly, we will lose our families.”
His fur brushes my hand. “Go ahead, touch him, he is very real, it is not a trick and we are not trying to deceive you.” My voice is commanding but quiet.
I hear him drop to his knees. “This can’t be real. This is the work of the devil.”
“I assure you father, your friend is not evil but it will triumph if you do not help us.”
Grant’s grave voice is imploring. “Please I am not asking you to do anything wrong, I just need you to make contact with someone. We need his help and we need to warn her family about the imposters who plan on taking their lives. A message-that is all I’m asking. However, when you deliver the message, you must be alone and deliver it only to the one called Gabriel. Mia, do you have a picture of Jacob?”
Taking the watch from my neck, I fumble to open the locket revealing a picture of my family. “He is the one on the bottom row, left hand side.”
“Kenneth, when you take the message to Gabriel make sure that this boy or a woman who looks like Mia is nowhere in sight. They are not who they are pretending to be.”
Kenneth’s sharp intake of breath concerns me, but I slump in relief at his resigned response. “Only a message to someone named Gabriel. Where am I going? What is the message?”
“You are going to the hospital and ...” I turn toward Grant’s voice and hold out my wallet. “The third or fourth picture is a family picture and there is a man standing...third from the left, show it to Kenneth. “That is Gabriel and I need you to tell him that things are not what they seem with Jacob and Mia but that he cannot let on what he learns because their lives and the lives of others depends on him not showing that he is suspicious. Tell him to have Reginald or Emma call this number when they are away from the others. Remember, only to him and with no one else around. Pretend that you are there to see a patient. Can I ask one more thing from you?”
“What it is?”
“If they are not there, could you please pretend to know him, just him, not the rest of the family and find out where he went?”
“I can do that. You two can stay here and I will leave right now. It shouldn’t take that long, the hospital isn’t that far.
Removing my wedding ring for the first time since Andrew slipped it on my finger, I search for Kenneth’s hand and press it into his palm. “Father, if he has any trouble believing your message, show him this and I promise he’ll understand.”
He rises and the door shuts moments later. I can’t stop running over my barren ring finger and thinking about my family. Grant lays his hand gently upon mine. “He will deliver the message and your friends will contact us.”
“I’m sorry you had to reveal yourself to him.” I know I’m making small talk, but my nerves are wound so tight by the thought of how much could go wrong with even this simple message, I need a distraction. “Do you think that it will cause a problem?”
“I will deal with everything else later, but honestly, Kenneth is a very cool clergyman. Despite his trying to force down his suspicions, I think he has always known, but was trying not to admit it to himself. We thought he even caught some of our pack members on one of his outings in the woods one evening. Generally we stay away from camp areas and well-traveled trails, but one evening after Amanda had converted some of our new pack members, we were teaching them how to transform at will. One of our young boys started a game of tag, werewolf style. They were running through the woods and transforming back and forth when we ran across Kenneth. He was camping with some of the children, they were asleep in their tent, but he was outside having a cup of coffee by an extinguishing fire. Although he never spoke of seeing them, after that evening, we caught him walking in the woods more and watching the group of boys more closely.”
“Would you mind my asking how your family originally became werewolves?”
“I don’t mind at all, if I get to ask you questions too. I could use the distraction as well.”
I laugh. “I guess that’s only fair.”
“My mother was bitten when she was a little girl and her family was vacationing in France. They had rented a home and she had gone exploring and got lost. When they found her, they thought that she was bitten by some sort of wild dog. They took her to the hospital and she was treated and they thought everything was fine, but then she started disappearing for days at a time and would wake up, sometimes very far from home, without any memory of what occurred during that time. This went on until she was at college. There, she met my father. He knew what she was immediately and confirmed it when he followed her the night of the first full moon. He had taken a video camera with him so that he could tape my mother transforming and then running. At first she thought it was a trick, but the more she got to know him, she began to trust him and he took her here and showed her others of her kind, after that, they were together all the time, fell in love and had us. We are natural born wolves so our powers of transformation did not come until we were twenty-one, but my mother was only thirteen when she began to change.”
As the realization of what this means seeps into my consciousness, I freeze.
“Mia, what’s wrong.”
“Nicholas and Kayla both got bitten. Does that mean that they will be turning into werewolves when the first full moon occurs?”
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br /> “Y...”I could hear the yes coming from him at first, but then he stops.
“Grant, does it mean that they will be werewolves?”
“I don’t know, normally I would say yes, but with all of the commotion going on around them about curing them, I’m not sure if you guys have the power to repel such a transformation and if the cure stopped this possibility.”
I can’t believe that this could be happening. “When is the next full moon?”
“We just went in to the new moon phase so we have time.”
Despite our accepting the surreal world as part of our lives, I cannot believe how it is throwing us a new curve where surreal creatures are crossing mythical lines in the same way that Reginald’s life had. “Grant, does your pack have any werewolves that are also witches?”
“I’m sorry I don’t have an answer to that worry, but from the little that I have seen your Jacob do, I’m not sure that you have to be overly concerned. I’m sure that they will do fine with it. Can I ask you something?”
“Sure, what would you like to know?”
He hesitates before his voice drops to a mere whisper. “What are you really and is there a chance of what you’re afraid of coming for your son?”
“I am a psychiatrist at a hospital in Maine.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know that.”
“I know, but I don’t think that you will believe me if I tell you that I’m just a witch. I know that you think that I am more, but I’m not. In fact, I’m not sure that I am even really good at being a witch. I learned about what I was after I was already taking care of my first twins so my life was more about my children and my work than this surreal world. My parents never knew about this world, my dad is a great doctor and researcher and so was my mom. They were very pragmatic people and would have never in their wildest imagination consider that such things could exist.”
“Mia I know that this may sound strange, but Nicholas jumped in front of Jacob because someone was shouting that if Jacob got bit, he was part vampire and would die. Who was yelling? If you are only a witch, how are your children vampires? Are they all vampires?” His questions are quick.
Considering what we may be facing and what he is, I may need his help if we do get to the children and learn that they will turn into werewolves. My instincts scream that he is a good man and although he can be manipulated, anyone can. He did disregard his sister and his pact to come back for me. I let out a huge sigh. “Their father is a vampire and two of my children are vampires while the other two are just witches.” I can’t believe how normal that sentence sounds to me.
“Is that why Nicholas jumped in front of Jacob, because Jacob and Nicole are the vampires while Nicholas and Kayla are the witches?”
Before I respond, the door opens. Kenneth is back. “Did you see Gabriel and give him the message?”
Sitting next to me, he takes my hands. “Mia, I’m sorry, Gabriel was not there.” His tone tells me there is more, but he is hesitating.
“What aren’t you telling me? Please, any information that you have, we need to know, there are too many lives at stake!”
“I saw some of the others that were in the photograph. I waited until they moved away from the nurses’ station and then asked one of the nurses where he was. She said that Gabriel did not return with them and that they were getting ready to go home. I stayed around and went over to talk with one of the patients sitting next to two of them who seemed to be whispering in a corner. They were discussing staying behind to retrieve their family members who had been captured. I could tell that they didn’t want the rest of them to know what was going on. I heard one say that they could use the excuse of taking Andrew’s place to help with the record keeping to throw off any type of suspicion.”
From what he was saying, someone suspected that something was off besides the missing family members. Maybe they realized it was not me and Gabriel is already searching for the ones who were captured. “Did they say anything else? Did they mention if Gabriel is out there looking for the ones who got caught?”
“Mia, Gabriel was one of the ones captured. I’m sorry. I thought about going up to the ones who were talking and giving them the message, but you said to only speak with Gabriel and I wasn’t sure what to do. If it is of any consolation, I think they suspect something in their group is wrong because they didn’t want someone in your family to know what they were doing. I would have stayed around longer, but you came up to me and asked if you could help.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her that I had seen the patients and already given last rights to those in need so I was just seeing some of the patients in the lobby before leaving.”
“She didn’t suspect anything, did she?”
“No, she went back over to your husband and the others.”
My stomach churns at the thought of her with my family, but at least it sounds like no others were replaced. “Mia, I’m sure that everything will be fine.” He places the ring in my palm.
“Thank you so much for trying to get the message to them for me.”
“Grant can I see you for a moment?”
“What’s the matter?”
“I just need to talk to you a moment.”
Putting my ring back on, I feel a strange sense of relief knowing that Gabriel is with Jacob, despite their danger. Concentrating, I try reconnecting with Jacob. Finally, I hear rattling, but not the familiar chains as a familiar voice whispers.
“Jacob, you are not strong enough to break the bars, they must have a spell attached to them like the shackles. All you are going to do is make yourself exhausted.”
A strange voice bellows from a distance. “Stop making that racket. Even if you do break the bars, I’ll stop you from escaping and I don’t care if that means I have to kill you. David might get mad, but he’d get over it, so stop the racket, you are giving me a headache!”
Jacob’s nervous voice quivers. “What do you think will happen to us? Do you think the others are alright or do you think they are being held somewhere else in this awful place?”
“Sweetie, I know that you are nervous, but I’m sure that the others have made it away and that everything will be alright, you just have to hold on to hope.”
The male, menacing voice is now taunting. “Oh yes hold on to hope, or maybe you should be practical and give David what he wants. If you do, he may let you join us instead of killing you the way he killed the others in your group.”
Sobs rip from Jacob’s chest. I can’t stand that he is suffering and believes he lost his family. Knowing the loneliness engulfing him, pulling him into an endless surf, I desperately need to communicate with him, reassure him that he is not alone, they are alive and will rescue him. If he could only feel me in the same way that I feel him or feel his sister so that he would know that he is not alone. My heart breaks for the pain that I know he is enduring now. If I could only wrap my arms around him and make him feel safe and comforted. I’m unaware of how hard I am picturing him in my arms and hoping that I could bring him comfort until I hear his surprised voice.
“Mom”
I feel him relax slightly. He felt me!
“Jacob, it’s me Eva, not mom.”
I could tell from her tone that she knows something is going on but wants him to stop talking because of the inquisitive ears.
“Your right, I’m sorry.” His voice sounds distracted.
I concentrate harder wanting him to know that his family is alive and wish that I could tell him, but I doubt that he can hear me, so I focus on my holding him. Hopefully he will continue to feel me. Even though he doesn’t say another word, his body relaxes.
Grant’s anxious voice and grabbing my arms breaks my connection. “Mia, are you hurt? Why are you crying?”
“I’m sorry, I was just...” I stop not knowing if Kenneth is with him and unsure if I should say anything.
“We’re alone. Kenneth went to the church to pray. He wanted to talk wit
h me because he got a call from Amelia and she told him that I was bewitched by you and on my own. She asked if he would contact her if he heard from me so that the pack could grab me and try to break the spell. Now will you tell me what is wrong?”
“They have my son in some sort of cage and they’re trying to make him believe that they killed the rest of us. I was trying to let him know somehow that I was still alive, that he was not alone. They have my sister-in-law and brother-in-law and now you’re telling me, that he called your pack and they are on their way. I just don’t know what to do. I knew that one day we would face something else, but I never expected that it could come from a mistake.” Frustration envelops me.
“You need to think of it another way. At least Jacob is alive and so is your family. We will get our families back and the pack is not going to come for me.” He takes my hands, squeezing them reassuringly. “I convinced Kenneth not to call them and he is praying because I have asked him to go back to the hospital and try to get the two that he heard talking about staying to come here. He is a little leery about getting involved. Maybe we should go and see if we can get to your family members.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, what if the others haven’t left yet or someone is watching the hospital. It would be better if he went to get them, but either way, the others would have to be gone and I only hope that if they are suspicious, maybe some of the others know that there is something that they have to be on their guard for. She is ...Grant I need you to dial a number for me now.”
“What’s wrong?”
“He said that they are going home. We have children, families and helpless patients at Sanctuary, I can’t just let Marlena and whatever brutal vampire is with her go there without warning them. What if she decides to hunt there or just kill brutally? I can’t give into my fear and do nothing. There are other families there.”
“Mia, contacting them is dangerous, you know what could happen.”