Luna's Sokjan (Book one) (2 page)

“Not now, lass, you’ll
have time for that later. Get what you need.” He told me sharply in
his Alpha voice.

I obeyed. On leaden feet,
I walked past my mother’s body and gathered up the items that I
would need. By, the time I had packed. Angus had doused that house
with gas. We loaded everything in the back of SUV before he lit the
house on fire. Three miles down the road a mighty boom shook the
area. Angus told me, if you have to leave something behind, burn it
down. It makes it harder for someone or thing to track
you.

“Did you catch any scents
while we were in the house?” He asked me while he drove.

“It smelled like wet
wolf.” I replied dully staring out the window.

Part of me didn’t care,
but part of me wanted blood.

“That’s right, and I know
where to go to find wet wolves. If, they are the same wet wolves,
lassie, we will kill them all.” He promised me in a deadly
voice.

By
midnight
,
we had
reached our destination. It turned out to be an old warehouse
located near the docks. I didn’t ask Angus how he knew about this
place, I didn’t care. I refused to be left in the SUV while he
scouted out the area. So, together we tracked down the guilty
wolves and slaughtered them all. Our blood bath was so immense. It
would eventually make the human news.

It was nearly three am,
when we boarded the airplane going anywhere but here. Once, we were
tucked into the first-class seats and left alone. Angus took my
hand. I peered up at him
.

“I am truly sorry, lass.
May Luna hold her by the palm of her hand waiting on us,” he said
softly to me.

Tears ran down my cheeks
as I thought about my mother for the first time in
hours.

“Why can’t we have a
family, Angus?” I asked, “Aren’t we family?”

Angus had explained to me
on the drive to the airport that Sōkjans could never have a
family.

“When, you have completed
your training, I too will have to leave you.” He told me softly
peering down into my eyes, “And when that day comes. I want you to
remember what you mean to me.” He wiped some of the tears from my
cheek. “I have left you everything I own. I had the papers drawn up
right after I mated with your Ma. You are my only daughter, my only
family.”

Angus hugged me to him and
held me until I finished crying.

And Luna begins the
preparation of her youngest Sōkjan in blood and pain.

Ten years
later,

“Damn it, Angus! I said go
fucking left!” I shouted at Angus. “What the fuck?”

I jumped to the right
dodging the vast green four clawed foot of the hydra.

“Angus!” I shouted for him
again. “Fuck!”

I cut the side of the
hydra’s leg with my black bladed sword and tried to look around for
Angus. Had the monster somehow stepped on him? If, the bastard was
playing a joke on me, I was going to kill him myself. Jumping again
to avoid being smacked into the wall by its tail, I checked the
cave again.

“Angus!” I
screamed.

Fear crept through me and
for the third time in my life, an all-consuming rage filled
me.

This time I wasn’t a
frightened child or an innocent teen. This time I was a fully
trained an Sōkjan. I embraced the fear and changed it to my
advantage.

“NO!” I
screamed.

‘Never lose control,’ was
the first lesson that Angus had taught me. It was the first lesson
I broke.

Moving with a fluid grace,
I climbed up the hydra’s leg. I pulled power to me as I crawled up
the monster’s chest to its heart. Using the extra power to boost my
already considerable strength and plunged both hands into the
dragon’s chest. Blood showered me from head to toe, when I ripped
open its chest. I drank it in. I truly loved the taste of
blood.

The second of the hydra’s
massive dragon-like head tried to rip me off of its chest, but I
clung to the open hole. With, enormous strength, I slammed my
power-filled hand through the creature’s heart and soaked myself in
blood for a second time.

‘Always be aware of your
surroundings’ that was the second lesson Angus had taught me all
those years ago. It was also the second lesson that I broke today
in the pit of hell.

The hydra and I fell
together to the cave floor. Trapped between the substantial body of
the hydra and the cave wall, I cut my leg open from mid-thigh to
ankle.

I was aware of one thing
and one thing only. Angus was gone, and I was entirely
alone.

I spent nearly two hours
searching for Angus’s body. Finally, giving up, I climbed up the
hundred foot cave wall back to the world above. Covered in blood,
wounded, exhausted, and numb, I lay in the dirt staring up at the
stars
.

“Great Mother, hold his
spirit in the palm of your hand until we meet again.” I prayed to
the stars.

Slowly and in considerable
pain, I pulled myself to my knees.

“I should hate you with
all my heart but I can’t. You have taken everyone from me. Now, I
am all alone and completely yours.” I said to the empty darkness.
“It is done, Great Mother. Come shine down on your children once
again.”

With, a heavy sigh, I
bowed my head. I closed my eyes against the aching loneliness I
felt deep within my soul.

And on this night, Luna
completely claimed her Sōkjan with blood and pain.

Chapter 1

Present day.

The old two story brick
house looked like the perfect back drop for a horror movie or a
monster trying to hide in plain sight. The yard full of tall, dry
grass made the perfect hiding places for birds and small animals.
Dead leaves fell from the trees that lined both sides of the yard,
like gently falling snow covering the ground. Gracefully dancing
leaves flew across the front porch of the house, carried by a
strong fall wind. Weather beaten shutters barley hung from old
brick walls or lay forgotten on the ground. The neighborhood
children, no doubt, had a marvelous time breaking out all those
windows. The broken windows allowed the brisk night air in and
carried out the harsh odor of death and decay.

Lifting, my nose slightly
I sorted through the different smells hidden under the odor of
death. Vanilla and roses, ah, she was still here. I had searched
two other abandoned houses this evening and luck was finally on my
side. Entering the house in a run, I bypassed the ground floor all
together and headed straight up the stairs following the girl’s
scent. I paused outside the doorway of a small bedroom.

Her unmoving body lay on
an old, rotting mattress. Moving towards the bed I carefully
avoided the blood pooling on the floor. I stared down at the sight
of her, she was a bloody mess. The killer, driven by his frenzied
thirst for power had damn near ripped her apart. He had ripped out
her heart, intestines, and the liver, the favored organs for any
predator.

She barely looked like the
photo of the young girl I had seen earlier this evening. She had
been pretty in life, with wavy brown hair, that now lay limp and
caked in blood. The skin, which had once been kissed by the sun
turning it a golden brown, now was pale, bruised, and bloody. The
large brown eyes, once so full of life, were now grayish white in
death. Her little cupid mouth, once carrying a mischievous smile,
now hung open and sluggish from her last terrified scream. Shifting
one long finger into a long claw, I dipped it into the cooling
blood. Closing my eyes, I lick the blood off my claw. I tasted the
metallic bite of the blood and the burning sting of magic. Well
wasn’t that interesting. She had been extremely powerful for one so
young. The killer had chosen well.

Opening my glowing eyes,
white with power and looked around to the room. Both the girl’s
dead body and the blood gave off a grayish-black aura. My gaze
landed on the only color in the room, a greenish-yellow aura. He
had cut himself on a wedge of glass when he jumped out of the
window. Gotch ya.

With a feral grin, I went
to the window and once again, shifting my finger. Carefully I
rubbed it across the glowing glass. Bringing the glowing blood up
to my nose I inhaled his woodsy spice scent entwined with sulfur.
Then I tentatively tasted the blood.

I gasped out loud from the
burn of their blended powers. Her power had made him exceptionally
strong, but it wouldn’t last long. Like, any drug, it would run its
course and then he would be out looking for a new power donor.
Tracking the greenish-yellow glow across the backyard to the seven
foot tall wooden privacy fence, I leapt from the window without a
backward glance. It’s not as if I could help her now
anyway.

Landing in a crouch below
the window, I slowly straightened. I took a deep breath to remove
the smell of death from my nose before sprinting across the yard
and vaulting the fence. Using my power to calm the neighborhood
animals, letting them know that there was another dangerous
creature in their territory. I ended up tracking the glowing blood
for nearly four blocks before it disappeared altogether.

I sprinted back to the
house. I thought back on the information I had been given. Odd, no
one had mentioned that the child had been a werewolf.

Once, I reached the black
SUV. I pulled out my cell phone and pressed speed dial. I glanced
back at the house.

They will pay with their
lives for all of your suffering, little Meg, I promise.

“Hello?” Ted’s tired
southern accented voice answered.

“I found her.” I said
quietly.

There was no need to tell
him who I was, he already knew. We’ve been working together for the
past eight years. Ted worked for the paranormal police, a branch of
the human law enforcement. They tried to regulate all the
supernaturals of our world. He was also my contact for the human
police force. Normally, the supernatural creatures followed the
human laws and didn’t cause any trouble, but when they crossed the
lines, they called me. I always found it highly amusing that the
humans thought that they could manage creatures that would enjoy
eating them much more than dealing with them.

After, a pause he asked,
“Where, McKenna?”

“In the abandoned house on
the corner of Warfin Street and Allen Avenue, bring the whole team,
Ted. It’s a bloody mess.” I paused, “I’ll meet you at the Waffle
House on 5th and bring the file on the mother.” I told him and
waited to give him a chance to register what I was
saying.

“So, you still think that
the mother had something to do with this?” He asked with a heavy
sigh.

“One hour, Ted, and don’t
forget the file.” I told him and hung up.

Settling into the driver’s
seat, I programmed the GPS unit for Waffle House. Listening to the
soothing sounds of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”, I drove to Waffle
House.

At two in the morning,
Waffle House is the favored spot for party goers and for people
like me who keep odd hours. The restaurant was unusually busy when
I walked in to wait for Ted. I always enjoyed watching the patrons
of any restaurant, but I genuinely liked the ones here. Drunken
people can be so much fun.

Ted was late. I had
already eaten my usual meal of steak and eggs while waiting for
him. The other patrons tried not to stare at the six foot tall,
white haired, icy blue eyed woman dressed in all black sitting
among them. I was a rare sight at any time of the day. No, I didn’t
have any unpleasant scars marring my face. I was a pretty in an
exotic sense of the word. I was an intriguing combination of my
Romani gypsy witch mother and the Celtic werewolf blood of my
father.

When Ted walked through
the door, one glance told me that he wasn’t dealing with Meg’s
death extremely well. Cases involving children murders were always
terribly difficult to work on. No one wants to believe that
somebody could be that cruel. He was nearly my height with short
blond hair and warm blue eyes. His down home smile made him
handsome. His way too thin body was dressed in the same blue polo
shirt and khaki pants that all paranormal police wore. He sighed as
he took a seat across from me.

We waited for the
unusually perky waitress, Joanna, to take his coffee only order and
leave.

He placed a thick file on
the table between us.

“McKenna that was not a
mess
,
this place
is a mess.” He said as he motioned around the busy restaurant.
“That was a horrific scene of madness. Did you see the
downstairs?”

We fell silent again as
Joanna placed Ted’s coffee down and cleaned the dirty plates off
the table. No, I hadn’t seen the downstairs area because what I
needed to see had been upstairs.

“Joanna, could you bring
us a pot of coffee please?” I asked.

“Okay honey.” She
replied.

The overly perky Joanna
left us with a cheery smile. Humans could sometimes scare me even
more than all the monsters I have encountered. How could she be so
cheery and perky at three in the morning during a busy, rush
hour?