Secrets of the Sleeper: True Nature Series: Book One (13 page)

“Need a ride? I saw Ruthie at the field and she doesn’t seem to be leaving any time soon.”

I laughed. “No. That she is not. And my dad just bailed on me.” I peered over at the driver. It was Dante, the strange kid who called me a dummy. I had passed him a few times in the hall since then, and each time, I felt uncomfortable.

Bobby hung an arm out the window and waved me over. “We can give you a ride, right, Dante?” He looked quickly at Dante, who gave me a toothy grin.

“Sure,” Dante said.

“Uh, I don’t know. My dad thinks I’m going home with Ruthie…” For some reason, I didn’t feel right about going with them.

Bobby opened his door and walked up, grabbing my backpack. “Come on,” he urged. “Shrina’s coming, too.” He looked back up the sidewalk. “And here she comes.”

Sure enough, Shrina headed toward us, swinging her long black hair behind her. I bit my lip, considering Bobby’s offer. I was just being silly. And I didn’t want to wait for Ruthie, that’s for sure.

“Hi, Tru!” said Shrina. “You coming with us?”

I shrugged. “Guess so.”

Bobby smiled at us both. “Your carriage awaits you,” he said, swinging open the car doors and grandly waving us in. We giggled. He placed both Shrina’s backpack and mine in the trunk, and we headed off.

“So,” I said once we were on our way, “thanks for giving me a ride, Dante. I hope it’s not too far out of your way.”

Dante had not contributed anything to the conversation thus far. He seemed deep in thought.

After a long pause, Bobby smacked him in the shoulder. “Hey, man, Tru’s talking to you!” He swiveled around to me. “Sometimes he gets caught up in lyric land. It’s not far out of our way, right, Dante?”

Dante met my gaze in the rearview mirror. His dark brown eyes seemed to come to a decision.

“It’s not a problem,” he said.

There was an awkward silence, during which Shrina mimed something that suggested
He’s whacked!
I tucked in my lips, trying to prevent an all-out grin at her antics.

“Well, thanks anyway,” I repeated.

Bobby reached over to find a song on the radio. “Dude! This song rocks!”

While the boys were discussing the best radio stations, Shrina turned in her seat. “Hey,” she pursed her lips conspiratorially. “You and hottie Efoti, huh?”

She was just as bad as Ruthie with her need for details about everyone else’s love life. I suppressed my annoyance and tried to derail her.

“Maybe… What’s up with you and Bobby?”

Shrina’s eyes widened, and I saw a flush run up her brown skin. She shook her head and I got the message. “Got it,” I whispered.

Bobby turned around. “What are you guys whispering about?” He smiled. “Any good gossip?”

Shrina suavely waved him off. “Oh, we were just talking about who everyone is going to Homecoming with, that’s all.”

Bobby looked taken aback. “Really? Do you have a date already?” He almost seemed upset.

I sneaked a peek at Shrina. She shrugged. “Not yet, but rumors are afloat.”

Oh, she was good. Bobby was eating this up, hook, line, and sinker. He turned back to the front. I gave Shrina a mental high-five, which she apparently understood because she winked at me.

Shrina was the first stop. She gave me a hug as she left. We were suddenly friends. I wore a happy grin as we pulled away from her house.

It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t know where Bobby lived, and I wondered if Dante was dropping him off before me. That would be really awkward. Just then, Bobby asked for directions. Apparently, he already knew the general area of my house.

As we approached the street that led to my neighborhood, Bobby suddenly slumped over.

“Hey, Bobby! Are you all right?” I reached over the seat to jostle his shoulder. “Oh my gosh! Dante, pull over!” I ripped off my seat belt and leaned partway over the seat to get a better look at Bobby.

Dante laughed. I looked at him in shock. What kind of game was he playing?

“Don’t worry, Tru,” he said. “Bobby is just sleeping. I bet you’re sleepy, too.” He grinned at me and reached his hand over to my arm.

What the heck
? I thought.

“Yeah,” he went on, “I think you need a nap, Tru.”

Then everything went dark.

Gotcha

I awoke to the
smell of pine and ashes—and the mother of all headaches. I tried to bring my hands to my head, but they were being held in place. I opened my eyes to find my wrists tied with rope to the leg of a wooden chair. I yanked uselessly. What the…? Where was I? Blinking back my confusion, I sat up to assess my surroundings.

The small room couldn’t have been more than twenty or thirty feet. The ceiling was made of bare, wooden beams, the walls knotty wood planks. Across the room stood a brown sofa with an end table and lamp. The sound of running water slipped out the bottom of a door next to it. My breath hitched. Who was that? A few scenes from different horror movies crossed my mind as I sped up my perusal of the room, looking for escape routes or possible weapons. Off to my right lay a small, faded kitchen with an old refrigerator, microwave, and sink. Rustic cupboards hung above a short counter. On the other side of me sat a woodstove. The door to this cozy establishment must be the large door not far from me with the lock on it. Two curtained windows nestled the door between them.

Clarity returned with a frame-by-frame replay of my car ride home after school. I recalled being in the car with Bobby and Dante. I remembered Bobby slumped over and Dante saying something about a nap.

How long had it been since then? I needed to get out of here before Dante, presumably the one on the other side of the door, returned. I could kill myself for not listening to that little voice that said “Don’t get into the car with that weird kid.” If I didn’t do something now, someone else might take care of that for me.

I stood up carefully, bent over awkwardly since I had very little lag in the rope between my hands and the chair leg. I had to get to the door. The chair was pretty heavy, but I lifted it anyway and began to tiptoe to the door, praying that the wood floor wouldn’t creak. Light as a feather, light as a feather.

No such luck. Due to the heavy chair, each step triggered a loud groan. Oh, for the love of… I decided to just make a break for it. At least I had a heavy weapon in my hands.

Just as I set the chair down to open the front door, the other door swung in, eliciting a squeak of the hinges. Dante stepped out of what appeared to be the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel.

I picked up the chair again, holding it in front of me defensively.

He laughed. “Tru. You aren’t going anywhere. You don’t even know where you are.”

“My guess is that anywhere else is better than here.”

“Not necessarily. Besides, you wouldn’t make it two steps before I caught you, and then what would you do?”

He walked slowly toward me. In this setting I realized he was not a teenager. He was definitely not a high school student. He was taller than me and lean, with veiny muscle. I didn’t doubt that he could catch up to me.

I raised the chair. It felt amazingly light all of a sudden. “Don’t come any closer.”

He rolled his eyes. “Really? You think I can’t fend off a little girl holding a chair?”

“You can try,” I stated bravely.

“Fine. Go ahead. Open the door. You’ll find yourself surrounded by miles and miles of forest. You won’t make it very far, so maybe you will be served best conserving your strength for the moment. Right now, I just want to talk with you. Promise.” He held up his hands innocently, like he wasn’t some psychopath who had kidnapped me and done who knows what to Bobby.

“Where’s Bobby?”

“Don’t worry about him. I dropped him off at some park. He’ll get home fine when he wakes up. He’s probably already home.”

I hoped he called to check on me. Would he keep trying to find me or tell my dad I was missing? Did he know I was missing? I decided to look outside to see if Dante was bluffing. I had to set down my only weapon to do it, but Dante stayed where he was. I picked up the chair again and walked out, closing the door behind me. Sure enough, there were trees as far as I could see. Towering Douglas firs and redwoods, as well as miles and miles of ferns and poison oak. Still, it seemed more inviting than the cabin. The trees blocked out most of the sun, but I could see it breaking through the branches. It seemed like the middle of the afternoon. His car sat off to the side, under a makeshift carport. A rutty-looking road, barely wide enough for a car, curved around the trees and out of sight.

Would he let me keep walking? I doubted it. How far could I carry this stupid chair? Maybe I could surprise him when he followed me out.

I stepped to the side of the door and held the chair up so I could swing it at him when he stepped out of the door.

I could hear the stupid floorboards creaking as he walked across them. I tensed, ready to bring him down. Part of my brain knew I was hopped up on adrenaline, and I encouraged the self-preserving madness of this violent side of me. I imagined the chair breaking his face.

“I know you are standing by the door, Tru. I’m not an idiot. Besides, I can see you in the window.” Dante’s muffled voice easily penetrated the door.

Ugh! I forgot the windows.

“We can wait all day, if you want,” he continued. “Or you can just come in here and find out who you really are and why you can do what you do.”

Who you really are? Why you can do what you do?

The words ricocheted around my skull, and all at once I couldn’t hold up the chair any longer.

He had answers to questions I hadn’t quite given life to, but suddenly needed to know, desperately.

The door swung open wide. I stepped in front of it. He stood to the side, one hand out, inviting me in like a long-awaited guest.

I picked up my burden and followed it into his irresistible trap.

Rainbows and Unicorns

“Okay, start talking.”

Dante
had kindly uncuffed me long enough to use the bathroom, in which I had found nothing remotely useful as a weapon other than shampoo and soap. I imagined squirting the soap all over the floor and him slipping on it and breaking his neck, which kind of made me feel a little better. But eventually I returned to the room, where he politely held out the chair for me to seat myself before retying one wrist to the back of it. My wrist was already turning red.

“I’m not sure where to start, honestly.” He leaned back into the sofa, a thin laptop next to him.

“What did you mean by
who I really am
?”

“I told you at school. You are Idimmu.” He smirked.

I thought he had called me a dummy. “Yeah, what’s that?”

“That’s your
true nature
. Not human like you’ve been pretending to be so far. Time to embrace it, girl.”

“But what’s the difference between humans and Idimmu?”

“The difference is ordinary—” He held up one palm. “And extraordinary.” He raised the other. “It’s awesome! We’ve been called many names, though—witches, warlocks, fae, sirens, half-breeds, demons, the list goes on. Sometimes it depends on what you can do. In general, all Idimmu are
gifted
.”

“You left out unicorns.” I rolled my eyes.

He laughed. “They would be cool, right?”

Exasperated, I tried again. “Look, I think you’ve got the wrong person.”

No way was I any of those crazy things. I just had better eyesight than most. Nowhere in that list was werewolf, which was the only mystical being in my life right now. Of course, I had no proof yet. Man! I should have made a run for it after all. I wondered if Zander had called me. Where was my phone anyway? In my backpack, of course, which was probably still in the car.

Dante stood up and walked over to the refrigerator.

“Oh, really? I saw what you did for Bobby, you know.” He pulled out a soda, extending it out to me like we were friends just hanging out. I shook my head even though my mouth was as dry as the dirt road outside. He shrugged and popped the can open before sitting back down on the sofa. He took a swig and let out a deep, satisfied breath.

“That’s my gift, by the way,” he added.

I was having a hard time keeping up. “What?”

“I can see auras and, baby, yours lit up like a rainbow when you talked to Bobby that first day!”

I gave him my best you-are-a-whacko look.

“Sure, it may not be your average superhero power, but it’s very useful to the folks in charge. I’m just doing what I have to do to survive. You’d do the same thing.”

Dante’s voice raised and his eyes got a little crazy, like he was going to snap any minute. Dang! What was in that drink? Looked like your average soda, which meant he had a few more screws loose than I originally thought.

“Whoa, there. Auras. No, I think that would be way cool.” I had to calm him down. Uber-polite Dante was way better than hanging-by-a-thread Dante. He ran a hand over his face, pausing as if fighting for control.

“And like every superhero, we have a weakness,” he continued. He opened his eyes, and they looked sad, yet resigned somehow.

“We all have the same weakness?” For some reason, I felt like he was being straight with me.

“Yeah. Afraid so.”

“Then what is it?” I whispered. Somehow, I knew what he was going to say. No. No. No!

“Eventually, we all go insane.”

There. He said it. I
was
a psycho. I could feel the truth of his words. I’d rather die than go insane.

“Is there a cure?” My voice wobbled.

“No. Afraid not. But there used to be a certain individual who could temper it, kind of take the edge off, so to speak. Unfortunately, she ran away.”

“She?”

“Yeah, some Usemi they captured a long time ago. I don’t know much about her.”

“Usemi?” Peter and Zander’s conversation about my mother’s accident came to mind. They said a Usemi was involved in the accident.

“Man, I could use a white board right now.” Dante laughed. “Actually,” he continued, “I should just show you my secret website. The people I work for are not the most honorable, if you know what I mean. I’ve been saving information about them and all kinds of stuff, including whatever histories I can find about us, Usemi, Akharu, the Sethians, and all that crap, just in case I need blackmail material. Man, I’ve got quite a collection, which is totally ironic because they call my boss ‘The Collector.’ He collects us, uses our gifts for his projects.” He sighed as if to say,
Oh well
and stared out the window thoughtfully.

Too much information and not enough, all at the same time. I needed to narrow it down.

“Look, Dante,” I said, leaning forward. “I want to know more about Idimmu, Usemi, and Akharu.” I stumbled over the new words. “Can you tell me about them?”

“Sure. Why not? You’re going to see it all up close and personal soon enough.”

I tamped down the fear bubbling up. One problem at a time. “Go on,” I urged.

“Here, let me bring up my website for you. It’s not published yet. I’m going to rig it to go public if I don’t enter my password periodically. Unfortunately, the Internet is really spotty out here. I have to go into town to publish it. It’s going to be amazing!” He scooted to the end of the sofa, close to my chair, with his laptop out. I peered at the screen.

A Hello Kitty background popped up with a login box.

“Hello Kitty?”

He laughed gleefully. “I know, right? Who would guess that this site contains some of the biggest secrets in the world? Pink is so innocuous!”

I had to agree with him there. He started punching in a login name: ICANCU.

Before I thought better of it, I blurted out, “I. Can. See. You. You see auras. Good username.”

Dante grinned, then frowned. “I know! You don’t think it’s too obvious, do you? Wait!” He turned the keyboard away from me to type in the password.

Fine
, I thought.
Be secretive.

When he swiveled back to me, sounds of sword fighting, growling, and screaming streamed from the speaker and then fell silent.

I smirked at him. “Really?”

He shrugged. “I get bored sometimes.”

He ran his fingers across the keys and up popped image after image of fanged beings, some human-looking and some wolf. They looked like some of the creatures in my dreams. How was my imagination conjuring up the same things that Dante had on his computer, beings he claimed were real? I had firsthand knowledge of the wolves, but did that mean everything else he said was also true? I was beginning to think crazy Dante was telling the truth about everything.

He pointed to a couple of wolves fighting. “Those are Usemi. Also known as werewolves or lycans. There’s a lot of myth and lore about them, some true, some not. The bare bones version is that they are real, but very rare. I don’t know how far back they go, but I do know that their population has been dwindling. If humans knew of them, they’d put them on the endangered species list. Akharu, too.”

He pointed to another picture. A black-haired man with glowing red eyes bared his teeth ferociously. His shoulders were wide and curved, his fingers curled. He looked like a cross between a big hissing cat at the zoo and a lean version of the Incredible Hulk, except he wasn’t green.

“That’s Donavitch, also known to many as son of a—”

“I get it, thanks.”

“Well. No one messes with him to his face.”

“How did you get these pictures?”

“Oh, from the different Nasaru bases around the world. Nasaru is kind of the ruling party for all these creatures, really old, run by Sethians, the third ancient purebred. The purebreds include Sethian, Usemi, and Akharu.”

He pointed to a human-looking soldier.

“He’s a Sethian. They don’t change into animals, drink blood, or have gifts like you or I—well, I take that back. Those closest to the top have found a way to do different mind-controlling tricks. They say they’ve been blessed. But I have a different theory about that.”

He dismissed it with a wave. “Their tricks are only temporary. The strongest one is The Collector, of course. Not many folks know him as that. It’s kind of his secret side job. His main job is to run the Nasaru, kind of like their king or president. They call him
Malku
. It means ‘prince.’ Sometimes they call him Malku Kasadu, which means ‘the prince who overcomes.’ He’s their big hope for a brighter future, blah, blah, blah. Unless you were raised with them, it sounds very cult-like, I know.”

“This place doesn’t sound very nice. Why do you stay with them?”

He sighed. “I know, right? Like I said. Self-preservation. Once you are ‘collected,’ you don’t get to leave. But I’m different. I am allowed to leave because I find more Idimmu for him.”

“But why go back? You’re free now.”

“Not really. Remember what I said about our weakness? It started years ago for me. I thought it was schizophrenia at first, but then they took me to see this Usemi and she fixed me, although I was really freaked out because she seemed a little crazy herself. But I kept going back because I needed to be fixed now and then. It’s been a long time, though, and now she’s run away… I think they had her fix too many people and it broke her. ”

“So Usemi and Akharu have special gifts, too?”

“Oh, no, not like that. Usemi are super strong and live a really, really long time. They are hard to kill, but they aren’t immortal. They heal faster than humans, but they are definitely nothing like the creatures you see in the movies. They retain all their faculties when they change. And they don’t go around killing and eating humans.” He laughed.

“Well, that’s good.”

“Sure. If they did, you’d be hearing a lot more about them. Anyway, Akharu, or vampires, are super smart and live a long time, too. Again, not immortal. When I say super smart, I mean that their brains are wired differently, or maybe they just use more of their brains. I don’t know for sure. But they’re creepy in their own right. It’s like they know what you’re going to say or do before you do it because they’ve thought through all the possible scenarios in their minds, factored in all the minute personality traits they know about you, all the visual clues, and the immediate circumstances, and make the best educated prediction regarding what you’ll say or do. It’s a little like being around one of those autistic kids who can do intricate calculations in their heads, but Akharu don’t have all the social problems autistics have, if you know what I mean. At least that’s what most people say. I beg to differ, though, because the couple I’ve met annoyed the hell out of me. They can be the most pretentious snobs. They usually keep to themselves, you know, too good for the rest of us folks.”

“Wow. They sound lovely.” I hoped to never meet one.

“Yeah. Fortunately, there aren’t many left. Like I said, Usemi and Akharu are dying out.”

“So, can they do weird stuff like you?”

“No. They don’t have gifts like
us
.” He smirked.

While I was starting to believe all this crazy stuff, I was still in denial about where I fit into the picture.

“But you said a Usemi fixed you.”

“Yeah, but this particular Usemi is unusual. I heard she was originally Idimmu and got turned by a Usemi. She’s the only known case of it.”

“What do you mean? I thought that’s how one became a werewolf—you know, a bite or a scratch?”

He laughed. “Like I said, myth and lore. Usemi and Akharu are born, not made. Remember I said they were going extinct? Usemi and Akharu can only have offspring with their mates, as in the only other living creature they can truly love and procreate with.”

“But how did she become Usemi then?”

“That’s a bit of a mystery. I think The Collector knows. There are lots of rumors, though. Some say that The Collector experimented on her—he’s got a lot of really sketchy stuff going on in his laboratories. My favorite story is that she was bitten by her true mate, and their love was so strong that she survived the change.”

“Wait, you said people couldn’t be turned into Usemi!”

“Yeah, because Usemi bites are poison to humans. They die within days. Plus, it’s illegal. That’s one of the jobs of a Sethian, to enforce the laws of the purebreds.”

“Okay. So you think her true mate bit her?” This sad story gave me a brain itch, a Ruthie-ism for times when you knew you should remember something but couldn’t put the pieces together.

“Possibly, although if he did, he’s probably dead now because true mates can’t be apart very long. And also, she had an illegal kid with an Akharu. Heard he died when she was captured.”

Oh my gosh! I remembered the last dream I’d shared with Ruthie, the one about the good-looking Euro vampire and the wolf.

“I know, seriously sad and messed up,” he continued, although I was barely listening.