by L M Lacee
Keeper asked his dragon. Is she our Shadow?
I do not know.
I thought it was instinctive?
Really! Did you read that in a book?
You know my dragon. You disparage books but you read and hoard just as much as I do!
Let us get back to the topic of our Shadow!
Storm and Charlie’s Story
By L.M. Lacee
Table of Contents
Prologue:
CHAPTER ONE:
CHAPTER TWO:
CHAPTER THREE:
CHAPTER FOUR:
CHAPTER FIVE:
CHAPTER SIX:
CHAPTER SEVEN:
CHAPTER EIGHT:
CHAPTER NINE:
CHAPTER TEN:
CHAPTER ELEVEN:
CHAPTER TWELVE:
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
CHAPTER NINETEEN:
CHAPTER TWENTY:
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
Prologue:
C harlie killed. She did not enjoy killing.
She considered what she did justice!
After many torturous sessions of introspection and many… many days recently of the same. While she had been recuperating from wounds received during a mission. Which had not gone completely to plan. She finally came to a realization. Having non-human blood gave her the ability to not only take a life as long as it was justified but also not to dwell on it.
She was comfortable with that!
CHAPTER ONE:
C harlie had not planned on rescuing anyone on her self-imposed cross country vacation. But as was driving heading towards dusk, on a second class road. That wanted desperately to pass for a highway in what was commonly known as the middle of America. She was overtaken with an unnatural desire to pull over to the side of the road and park. Then she felt an overwhelming urge to walk through the nearby town for no apparent reason other than the need was there.
It was a most intriguing sensation!
After she hiked over a small hill Charlie slipped her sunglasses on and made her way into a growing town. It seemed larger and more upscale compared to other towns she had driven or stopped in over the last two months of her recuperation. She gazed around herself as she moved slowly down what appeared to be the main street. This town was amazingly prosperous, even though it was miles from any major form of industry or commercial development. Yet curiously all the shops were filled with merchandize and there were more shops being built. That alone made the town interesting. Charlie mused as she walked along the well cared for street, what made the people and town so prosperous? It was a puzzle that needed solving?
Looking into clean bright filled shops, dodging shoppers that seemed happy and relaxed. And ignoring stares from people who passed her or just stopped and looked at the woman that was obviously from out of town. It was the same reaction she got from most towns she passed through, so nothing different there. She would admit she did stick out a little compared to most of the people in the country towns. Dressed as she was in a black tee shirt and jeans with a well-worn flight jacket. That she had picked up many years previous from an army surplus store. She loved the jacket mainly because it took people’s attention off her small, feet that some may say looked ridiculous in her army boots. Mind you they only ever said it once, criticizing Charlie Easton’s feet, clothes or work ethics was never a good choice.
Unfortunately, her feet were in scale with her short statue being only on a good day and wearing heels around five foot four inches tall. It was a bone of contention that she did not take after her father in height, he had been six- two.
She possessed an hour glass figure that belonged to a woman from the forties, or so she had been told on many occasions. Usually by shop assistants who itched to dress her in their latest fashion. Charlie would admit she kind of got a little kick out of making them cry when she asked for jeans and tee shirts.
Her short black hair and grey eyes surrounded by long thick lashes, combined with a heart shaped mouth. Garnered her more than one glance by the men that stopped and stared at her. Obviously they were willing to overlook her clothes which she appreciated, of course, they usually lost interest when she turned her ghost eyes towards them. But still it was a pretty town with pretty inhabitants. Unlike most towns in the mid-west this town spoke of city people relocating to the country, bringing with them their urban demands.
Charlie was more interested in the parts of the town that looked like they were in the midst of a major overhaul it was so new and clean. She spent some time looking in shop windows watching the people walking on newly paved sidewalks or driving on new streets. Eventually, she stopped at a diner that looked like it had been an original inhabitant of the town, it was one road over parallel to the main street.
Dinner was a delicious well-cooked steak smothered in gravy with fries and the endless cup of coffee. This diner was Charlie’s ideal place to eat. The people she met in and outside the diner were pleasant and polite and yet not overly friendly. They were the kind of people she would have normally seen in a city, which validated her thinking. That the city had come to the small town. Very suspicious!
The chatty waitress explained that all the new large modern homes were being constructed on the side of town she had not walked yet. She had laughingly told Charlie if she was looking to buy she had better hurry as they were being snapped up as quickly as the contractors built them.
The unasked for advice made Charlie’s suspicious nerve wake up and shout let’s go look at these houses. Intrigued, Charlie decided to walk to her truck along the new walkway where the new homes were being built. Hands in her pockets, her habitual large shoulder bag across her body, minding her own business, strolling along the newly paved sidewalk. When the familiar itch between her shoulder blades started tingling. Telling her all was not right within the houses she was passing.
Something rather interesting or weird depending on one’s perspective she supposed, made her stop. It was almost like an invisible hand held her motionless. Charlie firmly believed in keeping her nose out of others concerns, just like they should stay out of hers. But now came her dilemma she could expend a lot of energy fighting something obviously otherworldly. In which case she would end up exhausted and still doing what she was meant to do. Or she could just go with her instincts and look around and find out why she was here.
Charlie chose the second option and looked around, seeing nothing untoward. She liked that word it made her smile, thinking of old detective novels she had read. Finally exasperated when nothing popped out and waved a flag to say this is what you are looking for. She looked up and noticed the windows on the houses facing her and began to scan the windows on the second stories. Three houses back from her position, she spotted the frightened face of a young girl. Who was looking out from behind a lifted piece of newspaper which looked like it was used to cover the windows? Charlie’s shoulders twitched again, another sign that all was not right in the house.
Giving in to the inevitable, after all, if something or someone had gone to so much trouble as to get her here. Then the least she could do was go investigate. She back tracked and knocked on the door of the home. She honestly thought she was going to be told that the girl was alright. Then they would prove it to the nosy woman on their doorstep by calling the child down to show her. Then they would tell her to piss off as was their right! What she got was a gun in her face and told to piss off.
In one swift unpredictable move, Charlie stepped into the man’s body and took the gun from the jerks hand. It was so fast he was still gaping at her with stunned eyes as she pushed him back into the house. She closed and locked the front door, then shot his leg out from under him. When a woman who Charlie supposed was the man’s wife, came screaming at her from what she assumed was the kitchen with a
large butchers knife. That being a fairly big clue there that she came from the kitchen, Charlie thought. She shot her in the leg as well.
She dropped the knife!
Charlie leaned against the lovely foyer table that sat under the huge gilded wall mirror and waited until the screams died down to a reasonable level. When the couple finally got to the sobbing stage, she motioned them up using the gun. “Up you get and into the lounge please!” Never hurt to be polite her mother had told her many years ago.
“How?” Whined the woman.
“I do not care. Just do it!”
Politeness only goes so far, Charlie reasoned she was the one to do the shooting, they should figure the rest out for themselves. If she suffered being shot, which she had been on several occasions, she worked it out. No one helped her! Granted she usually shot everyone, so there was no one left to help but still it was the principal of the thing! It may have been harsh but so was waving a gun in someone’s face who just came to ask a simple question.
After a few failed attempts the couple helped each other up by leaning on one another and sort of walked, hobbled through the double doors into the lounge. They finally manged to fall together onto a lovely cream colored couch, situated before an open unused fireplace.
The woman grabbed a red, and green woven throw and they both held a piece against their wounds. It didn’t stop the seepage of blood spreading into and across the expensive furniture. Blood! Charlie knew was very hard to get out. It was going to be near impossible from the couch.
Even though she had made sure to only graze each of their thighs, having them bleed out too fast would not help her at all. Pulling the ties from her bag. Don’t ask why, she just had them! Was her favorite saying when asked? She tied their hands in front, leaving them loose enough so they could still tend their wounds.
Experience over the years was a very good teacher. It would not be the first time a captive had a concealed knife hidden in their sleeve or even down the back of the couch or under a cushion or maybe they were double jointed and could release themselves from their bonds. Tying their hands behind them never ended well for the prisoners and on occasion for her. So tying their hands in front allowed her to see what they were up too if anything.
She sat back in a very comfortable armchair that matched the couch exactly in style and color. And was catty corner to the couple, Charlie looked around while she waited for the couple to settle. It always took a minute or two for the ones shot or knifed to come to grips with their predicament.
The room had just the right amount of opulence, the couple seemed to have very expensive tastes in furnishings. The walls and ceilings were painted a stark white. The only color being the accents, like the sand colored drapes covering the windows and the earth tones of the Italian tile on the floor. Hand woven, multi-colored rugs covered the floors. It was all very modern with a touch of old world. Nice! Charlie thought but it looked and felt like every show home she had ever seen. Beautiful… but cold, no warmth.
Then she turned her attention to the couple who seemed calmer now as they watched her from slightly glazed eyes. They were in their early forties obviously transplants, there was something so urban about them. In the well dressed, well cared for way of city people. He was tall but with a little paunch, maybe he liked the good life too much. He wore a pink shirt, sleeves rolled up with no tie and black pinstriped trousers, she could tell he wore his expensive clothes well. Like he was used to them, his light brown hair was styled business short which went nicely with his hazel eyes under slightly bushy eyebrows. He was thin lipped which Charlie always believed meant a person was mean spirited, he did have a severely long nose that stopped him being handsome. The man had a ruddy complexion which understandably was slightly paler now. Charlie suspected he was a drinker.
The wife on the other hand looked a little uncomfortable in her clothes. She wore a blouse made from silk and in a soft rose color. Her skirt was obviously the bottom half of a grey suit which she wore with three inch heels that gave her legs a nice look. She was slim without being thin, and Charlie would bet she worked out. The woman was of medium height. Her hair was a shade of blonde that did not come naturally and was styled to perfection in an elaborate hair twist on top of her head. She had small pale brown eyes, beady eyes Charlie called them. Her step-mother had eyes like that or used too. The woman’s make up looked like it was newly applied. Charlie wondered how she managed that at the end of the day. She was lucky to keep lipstick on for more than ten minutes if she remembered to apply it in the first place. Something to ponder later.
She displayed her jewels with relish by the amount she had on her person. Huge diamonds adorned her ears and fingers, sapphires and diamonds on the bracelets that she wore on both wrists. Charlie thought the wife seemed to be the type to rub her friend’s noses in her wealth. If she was to guess she would say the wife wore the price and more, of her recently purchased because I was hurt pickup!
Looking around again she listened hard but could hear no one else in the house and wondered why there were no servants. These people could obviously afford them. Yet she just knew the woman did the cleaning. Interesting!
As they always do the woman’s sobs quietened to sniffles and the man finally stopped groaning. With the lessening of pain and shock, his courage reasserted itself. It was a phenomenon Charlie over time had noticed. Why was it so? She never understood, she still possessed the gun, he was still shot. Yet men almost always tried to reassert their authority, it must be in the genes. He looked up from his wound but not quite into her eyes and snarled. “Who the fuck are you?”
Charlie just smiled and waved the gun around as she casual asked. “Tell me about the girl upstairs?”
“Go fuck yourself bitch!”
Charlie raised her eyebrows and said. “Now opposed to popular belief, which I am blaming on movies or TV and on occasion books. People as you can see do not usually pass out or die from a well-placed gunshot wound. In saying that a gunshot really does hurt like hell as you have experienced and placed in the right organ will definitely kill you.”
In Charlie’s experience a physically weak person would more than likely pass out from pain or shock! Which may have accounted for the belief that gun shots made people fall over. But these people did not succumb to shock or passing out, they had fallen over but people tended to do that, when shot in the leg. She believed they were not the type to stay shocked for too long which was good for her as she smiled and shot the man’s other leg.
This time she did not graze him, the bullet went through the muscle of his thigh and into the couch. She watched him a moment as he screamed and grabbed his leg while his eyes rolled back in his head for a minute. Then they fluttered closed as he breathed deeply.
She turned to the wife and raised her voice over the woman’s screaming. “You see how this works. I ask a question, you answer. If you do not answer, I shoot you. If I think you are lying, I shoot you. If I don’t like your answer, I shoot you.”
The woman stopped her near hysterical crying as she pressed the blanket over her husband’s new wounds and stared at Charlie from horror filled eyes. Unable to process what had happened to her quiet night. She stared into the cold grey ones of the woman opposite her and felt a shiver of dread, snake down her back.
Charlie reassured her. “Oh don’t look so worried. I will find the rest of the bullets. We won’t run out.”
“You’re a Demon!” The woman hissed between trembling lips as she made the sign of the cross over her heart. Charlie’s smile widened as she scratched her cheek with the tip of the gun. “So I have been told.” She then pointed the gun at the woman’s leg and in a voice that sounded like the demon she had just been accused of being, she asked. “Now! Why don’t we try this again? Tell me about the girl upstairs?”
The woman looked over at the holes in her husband’s leg and then into his agonized eyes as he nodded slightly. She licked her dry lips and stared into the merciless eyes of Charlie, after t
hat it went smoothly. Charlie got all her answers she wanted. Was there more pain involved? Well yes!
Alright, a lot of pain may have been involved but it really was their own fault, they kept pissing her off. It wasn’t like she had not given them the rules. She even repeated them twice!
It was also disgustingly tragic, apparently they obtained children mainly girls. Younger than ten and either full shifters or half-bloods they did not discriminate. Either were good and very profitable.
The wife could not tell her fast enough. It could have had something to do with the expression on Charlie’s face. It seemed that they sold the children for adoption. The shortage of shifter blood in the world since the declaration by the Goddess was driving the price up. So the little girls were becoming a hot commodity to the right buyer, and there were plenty of buyers. Young female shifters were highly desired. Translation: People like Mr and Mrs Fredson. Well respected, pillars of society or at least the society they mixed in, were making loads of money. Both being lawyers they were the perfect go between for the sellers of the children and the buyers. And for no extra cost they could facilitate the adoption no questions asked.
Of course this was not done out of the kindness of their collectively cold hearts. No! Both Mr and Mrs Fredson profited well and felt entitled, even justified for the profit they made as they were the go between. It was a more precarious position so should be compensated, or so they explained to Charlie. They did not care whether the children were being ripped from a loving family or not, it did not equate with them. It was a matter of business, Mrs Fredson told her.
And yes, she shot her for that!
They had no knowledge of what happened to the children once adopted and what they were made to endured. Or even if they remained alive after they handed them off. Although they did keep records of buyers for future contacts. What happened to the children made no difference to them as long as they got their money. Incidentally, Charlie was amazed to hear the town profited indirectly by the Fredsons little business. People who contacted them usually came and spent a few days in the town, several of those had been people who enjoyed a quiet place to vacation. So they all invested heavily in the towns’ growth. Hotels and golf courses were springing up all over the area, more housing developments like this one were planned.