by E G McNally
Taylor wasn’t sure how much time had passed since she’d been holding Jake’s body in the snow when Kamau gracefully slid across the snow, never leaving a single footprint, up to her and asked that she join them.
“I know this must pain you deeply my young darling, but I must ask that you come with us and return these children to the professor. They are freezing and my people will only give us protection until morning and then they must leave.” Kam spoke to Taylor gently. His strong, hardened voice left her with little comfort, knowing that she would have to leave Jake’s body behind.
“I’m afraid.” Taylor chocked, looking up at Kam, her face swollen and red from all the crying. “I did this.” She chocked back another wave of sobs, and then closed her eyes, knowing she couldn’t live without Jake, and disappeared.
Kam watched as a black wispy cloud dissipated in the place where Taylor had been crouching, and looked down at the body remaining.
“I know it’s not much, but we will give him a burial for kings.” He told the absence of Taylor, as a form of respect.
Once the slaughter had finished, Kam and the other Vampires began tearing apart some of the wooden materials they could find around the base, and stacked them in a large pile.
One by one they created a pile long and flat, like a bed, not one of them speaking a word to another. They wrapped his body tightly in a sheet, and then placed him on the center of the wooden pile, raised just above their heads. One of the Vampires, a taller slightly darker in complexion female, tore open a large vat of oil, and poured it all over the body and the wood.
Everyone stood around the mound of wood, draped with the human body, the children huddled in one large mass alongside Shyla, who was battered and tightly coddling a little boy, beside Kam. Kam nodded to several of the statuesque figures and they began to set fire, with some torches they had put together, lighting each end, and then tossing the torches on top, stepping back to pay their respects to the dead boy.
“Wherever Taylor is, I hope she is set free by this tragic event.” Kam preached over the roar of the flames.
They watched silently, as the fire roared up over the mound of wood, consuming all the pieces, and melting away the sheet that exposed the burning flesh underneath. They watched until the fire had consumed most of the body, and the fire dwindled down to a large mound of scolding hot coals.
“We must be going now.” Kam explained, placing an embroidered robe over Shyla’s shoulders.
As dawn began to break the surface of the sky, several of the Vampires had began dwindling away in singles and pairs, as they marched the children off through the woods. Shyla walked with the children huddled around her sides. She was carrying, in her arms, a little boy, with the same golden blond hair as the color of her fur, and Will walked beside them.
Deon watched as many of the Vampires that accompanied them, dwindled down to just one, gliding alongside Kam. She looked familiar, much like one of the images he’d found in Will’s memory bank.
“We’re surprised you showed up. How did you ever recruit all this help?” Deon used Will, searching for some clue as to where all the Vampires came from. He was diligently recovering information for Major Bradshaw, completely careless that he was back in his mother’s arms.
“I know you don’t know much about me.” He explained, “but I can sometimes see into the future, not something I’ve ever made clear. Not always perfectly, but for the most part, fairly accurately. And as you saw with me earlier, I knew the rescue was going to fail. Your only hope was for me to leave. I’ve been owed a great favor from many of my kind ever since my capture by the government, and now was as good a time as any to collect on their debt.
“I thought Vampires were a myth.” Deon commented again, using Will as his voice.
“Many things are not as they seem,” Kam responded. “Obviously,” he added.
“So then why do you stay with us and not return to your people?”
“We do not stay together as a people, most of us live alone. We have not got along for centuries and we do not like to take orders from anyone, yet alone our own kind.” He replied.
“So why do you work with us then? Instead of being alone,” he asked again, wondering why Kam had stayed with Dr. Ambler instead of leaving with the Goddess-like vampire beside him.
“I have my reasons,” he responded politely and then quickly changed the subject. “So who is the child that Shyla is clinging so tightly to?” He nodded over to her tiger striped body, crunching in the snow.
“Just one of the rescued children, I suppose. I’m sure Shyla just feels close to him, or wants to comfort him.” He responded, as Deon said nothing further through Will, about himself.
“So how are we going to get all of these kids back to our hideout? Is Dr. Ambler picking us up?” Deon commented, not sure where the hideout was.
“You made the arrangements. I think Shyla called for the professor to pick them up, remember?” Kam raised an eyebrow at Will suspiciously. He wasn’t sure if he was testing him or truly didn’t remember, but either way, referring to the professor as Dr. Ambler was kind of strange.
“Okay, I’m going to go talk to Shyla now,” he commented, retreating back to where she was walking with the children, comforting them.
Kam and the fellow female Vampire both bowed to each other, arms cuffed behind their backs, and then the woman glided off, over the powdered snow, south to an unknown destination. Kam turned northeast pausing briefly before making an announcement. “We’ll be there momentarily, just keep up for another few minutes, and then you can relax and vans will carry us off to safety.”
“I’ve never seen him so calm and collected and assertive,” Shyla whispered to Will.
“Yes, it is very strange.” He mechanically responded.
“So, do you think Taylor is the one, the one in the prophecy?” Shyla asked.
“The prophecy,” Will commented, and then Deon searched through his mind to see what he was talking about. “Honestly. . . No, I don’t think it’s her. I think someone more powerful and more experienced would be the one.” He responded, as Deon discovered the prophecy. He would have to make sure Major Bradshaw found out. Major Bradshaw would love to know that he could control the world with the entire stone. All that would be needed now would be Taylor.
“Just around the corner children, the vans are waiting just around the corner.” Shyla explained, hanging up the cell phone that she was talking on.
They walked another few minutes, turning around a large bend of trees, and to their surprise, on the other side, waiting, was the professor.
“Welcome children, you’ve been so brave, please come have some food and pick out some blankets. I’m sure you’re all freezing and hungry and tired.” He said, opening his arms wide. He pulled out a couple of boxes from the back of the van and started handing white paper sacks full of food to the kids in one hand and large, soft, fluffy blankets to the children in the other hand.
“Thank you.” Some kids answered.
“Oh, wow, thanks,” others answered. All readily snatching the sacks of food and the blankets, and jumping into separate vans until they were all filled up.
“Where’s Taylor, I thought she’d be with you guys?” The professor inquired, looking through the trees.
“Sorry, but I think she’s left our world, for now. She has something she needs to deal with.” Kam explained.
“It’s true,” Deon had Will add. “I can’t find her mind anywhere.”
“That’s really strange, but I guess there’s nothing we can do about it now.” He stated, turning to Shyla. “Who’s this?” The professor asked Shyla, as she picked up some food and a blanket from him with a little boy wrapped in her arms.
“My son,” she replied ,eyes wide and tired, but saying in one single look that you could never take him away from her again, ever.
Will seemed kind of distant for a little while until Kam finally got his attention, slapping a sack of food and a blanket aga
inst his chest. “Take that last van,” Kam ordered, and with that they loaded the last of the children into the vans. Kam, Shyla, and Will loaded into separate vans allowing the children to be accompanied by at least one other adult, and they drove off, headed for the Chateau Le Cache where everyone would find a peaceful end to a long day.
Chapter XXI: Fragment Combined
It’s been several days since the attack on the Cyndac Oil Refinery. According to authorities, one of the generators exploded setting off a series of explosions throughout the facility, and ended in the tragic deaths of several of the workers and security guards.
“Land over there, by that burned pile of wood.” Major Bradshaw commanded to one of his helicopter pilots. The man set the bird down beside the dark black pile, snow and black ash flying around everywhere as the rotors spun slowly keeping the helicopter ready for takeoff.
Major Bradshaw leapt out of the loading bay, and stomped through the snow until he was standing on top of the pile of burned ash and wood. He browsed around, knocking bone away with his boot, until he saw it, the little fragmented piece of diamond looking stone. He pulled out of his jacket pocket, the other piece he had retrieved off of Willem, and then waved it nearby the piece sitting on the ground. Both pieces began to glow in bright pulsing waves.
A large smile pulled across the face of Major Bradshaw as he reached his free hand down and snatched up the fragmented piece of stone. He wiped the ashes off of the stone onto his shirt and then let out a deep low sinister chuckle. With one piece in each hand, he held them apart, correcting the position in his hand in which they fit together like puzzle pieces, and then pushed the two ends together.
Brilliant light flooded the area, jetting out past the helicopter, like a mini supernova and the two pieces reformed through the brilliant light. Once the two pieces were completely attached the light died down and the stone returned to its brilliant diamond looking crescent shape.
Major Bradshaw wrapped the stone in some cloth and placed it in his pocket, glancing down at the burned pile of ash.
“Poor kid, never had a chance,” he mumbled, and then hopped back into the helicopter, and signaled for the pilot to head back to his new base.
Taylor was tired of the dark blank nothingness that consumed her thoughts. It seemed like she’d been hiding in it for an eternity. After what felt like a lifetime of deliberation she decided she must return to reality and wake out of her hopeless dream, finally opening her eyes.
Bright streams of sunlight blinded her focus, causing her to shield her eyes with her ridged black claw. As a small island in the distance began to appear, the warm aroma of smoked salmon rushed into her nostrils and the cool crashing of waves broke against her feet. She was standing on one of the beaches back home at Salt Creek, or so it seemed, but it was different than she remembered. It was fresher, quieter, the traffic from the highway nearby was absent, and the road looked worn, almost abandoned. Something seemed off, but she couldn’t put her finger on it, until she was startled by the same old man she had seen once before, leaning over a small fire on the beach, with a salmon spread open, smoking.
He looked up from the fire.
“Can’t stay away from this time, can you?” He straightened out his back, before hobbling over with the same walking stick as the other dream.
She thought for a while before responding to his question. “What time is it?”
He jabbed the walking stick into the sand. It burst into a brilliant blue flame.
“The time you died to create!” He exclaimed.
To be continued . . .