Lycan Fallout: Rise Of The Werewolf (25 page)

“Hold on,” Yutu said. He pulled a large rifle up from under the table. “I want you to know that I could have killed you at any time since you walked in that door…even sooner. I’ve smelled your funk for more than a week. Out there slinking around like a common coyote.”

Xavier snarled.

“I didn’t kill your entire clan because I had hoped for this meeting. If I had the courage to kill myself, I’d kill you fi Sd kI drst. Come here and do what you intended, my family awaits,” Yutu said as he once again quickly drank his whiskey. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

Xavier was turning back into his true form as he approached. His less-than-Lycan teeth ripped into Yutu’s neck. He did not eat the man in the off chance that by somehow eating him he would allow the man to reunite with his kin.

“I am no coyote,” he said as he pushed the man over. Blood ran freely from the hole in Yutu’s neck.

A smile formed on Yutu’s lips. “Epnic? Braytura? It is good to see you again.”

Xavier looked about wildly for intruders. “There is no one here,” he said to the hunter, but the man would not be saying anything again, not in this lifetime. Xavier walked out the door and ran into the night.

When he returned, what remained of his clan ha
d come back to the killing grounds. Most wandered around, without a leader they were unsure of what to do next. With so many lost at once, the ordering within the pack had been lost, Xavier came in and quickly placed himself amid the top of the tribe despite being too young. The others followed because it helped to restore order into their worlds.

Some of the elders that still lived protested mildly, but they were in no position physically to vie for the role. Xavier decided that eating the boy had been the best thing he’d ever done, the loss of his mother in the subsequent revenge hunt meant nothing to him. There were not families in the pack, only individuals with three common goals: eat, survive, and procreate.

We were on the road again. Bailey joined us, she was sent as an emissary of Talboton or, more likely, a spy to report back what she discovered. I did not harbor any secret notion that Talboton was going to willingly join in any fight. And honestly I didn’t blame them; as of yet, nothing had happened except stories from strangers they did not believe no matter who they were. Lana seemed overly morose with the addition to our party. Oh, she got along fabulously with Oggie and Tommy, but Azile and Bailey were threats to her.

Oh
, I love women in all their flaws and foibles. I’d learned long ago that women aren’t in competition with men; they are in competition with each other. Constantly sizing each other up for battle, but not with swords, knives, and guns….no, nothing that crude, they use something much more dangerous: their looks and their biting wit.

“I’ve heard the Red Witch devours her mates,” Lana said to me as we were riding along.

I laughed. “I don’t doubt that at all,” I told her.

“Then I shrink their heads and stick them in this saddle bag,” Azile said from twenty yards up. Not sure how she had heard, but I laughed again.

We traveled the next three weeks from town to town; with pretty much the same result we had suffered in Talboton, scorn and derision. We were sitting just outside the city limits of Harbor’s Town – a name which made absolutely no sense considering they weren’t anywhere near a body of water. Tommy an Vd kIord I were sitting in the back of the wagon watching Oggie run around in the grass.

“Gonna have to check for ticks tonight,” I said.

“Why won’t these people listen, Mr. T?” Tommy asked.

“Because it’s easier not to. Who wants to think the end of the world is around the corner. If you had come to me a week earlier before the zombies showed I would have called you crazy and shut the door.” I paused. “No…that’s a lie. I probably would have invited you in and at least listened to your entire story.” I paused again. “Shit, who am I kidding? I probably would have quit work and started prepping the house that night. Okay
most
people don’t want to think about doomsday scenarios.”

“What now, Michael?” Bailey asked, as she approached.

I looked over towards her. She was framed in a midday sun. “God, you remind me of him, and you’re beautiful. You’re really messing with my head, you know that? He would kill me if he knew I was looking at you like this.”

“You’re not really my type,” she said.

“Too pale? Vamps aren’t really known for lying out in the sun. I could try and find some spray on tan.”

Bailey smiled.

“Is it an age thing? I mean…because what’s a hundred and something years among friends? It’s all subjective. It’s how you feel, and honestly I don’t feel a day over eighty-six, ninety-two tops.”

“You haven’t answered my question.” She continued to smile.

“I don’t know really. I’m not even sure why I’m out here. It’s Azile’s game as far as I can tell.”

“He loved you,” Bailey said.

“And I him,” I told her, my head sagging a little.

“I’ve read all his writings at least a dozen times. Said you were crazier than a rabid bat, but always found a way out…no matter how bad the odds.”

“Not always unscathed,” I said, pointing to where Tommy had bit me and then lifting my shirt to show her where I had gotten shot and where the Lycan had raked his claws against me. “And the same cannot always be said for those that choose to stand with me.”

“Do you believe the Lycan are amassing for a war?”

“Azile believes it…that’s good enough for me. I just haven’t completely decided on my role.”

“That does not sound like the man BT wrote about,” Bailey said.

“That man died on a rooftop,” I said.

Now Tommy’s head sagged.

“I have no soul, Bailey. Do you know what that does to a moral compass? It’s like having a fan on a pinwheel – thing spins around crazily,” I told her. Bailey had a look of confusion on her face. “Fan or pinwheel?” I asked, realizing she probably didn’t know either one of the words.

“Both.” She
replied.

I laughed.

“But I get the idea without any further clarification,” she said. “Know what I think?”

I nodded my head in response.

“I think you made up your mind the moment you left your home.” And with that, she pulled her horse away.

I watched her leave. Lana was up next.

“We should have gone fishing,” I said to Tommy.

“Want one?” he asked, pulling a gummy fish out of his pocket.

“I’m good.”

“What do you see in her?” Lana asked.

“Besides being a bronzed goddess, what else do I need to see?” I asked, egging the girl on. It wasn’t often I could claim a position of superiority with a woman and I was going to relish it for at least a little while.

Lana snorted and walked away.

“Why?” Tommy asked.

“Why not?”

“You have been alive too long to have learned nothing,” he said as he hopped down from the cart.

“Don’t choke on that candy,” I told him.

I hopped off as well, figuring I’d go down by the small stream and see if I could catch some dinner while we waited for Azile. We had traded in the previous town for a small net, some hooks, and a thin line that looked like it would snap if anything bigger than a sunfish snagged the hook.

Oggie’s head stuck up as he heard me walking off. He came bounding over. “Want to go take a nap with me?” I asked. Of course he did
, as he stayed next to me.

I found a decent pole – looked like hickory from the feel of it – tied the line and hook and tossed it into the water. Without bait, the only way I was going to catch something was if it got impaled on my hook. I dug a small hole, jammed the pole into it and braced it with a couple of rocks. I wasn’t quite sure why I had gone so far with the illusion of fishing, but I was already ‘in’ so I might as well make the most of it.

I leaned up against a tree; I think the same one that had yielded my fishing prop. Oggie’s head immediately rested on my chest. I draped an arm around his neck and pretended to slumber almost as much as I pretended to fish.

I ‘lived’ in the past; today meant nothing to me, tomorrow even less. I was constantly reliving things that had happened. My brain, which should have been so much oatmeal by now, had been honed into almost a hard drive of information from which I could retrieve data within an instant and with as much clarity as the day it happened. Another ‘benefit’ of the vampire half of me. No wonder Eliza was such an evil bitch, she never had the luxury of forgetting all the bad that had happened to her. I, however, was weighed down with all the good. I could not forget the love and touch of my wife, the laugh and twinkle of my daughter’s eyes. The growth into manhood of my sons. Henry the air-fouling wonder
Bully. They were as real to me now as they had ever been. Like a ghost, I could walk in my memories with them. Always seeing but never touching. I knew this to be one of Dante’s circles of Hell. And not just any circle…but the most torturous of them all. To constantl [ Toghost, I y see your loved ones and never be able to touch them or interact. To never be able to have their memories diminish, yup, pretty much hell.

“How long you going to stand there looking at me?” I asked, never raising my head or opening my eyes.

“I sometimes forget how enhanced your senses are,” Azile said as she strode across the small stream. I felt Oggie stir, but he did not awake. “Fishing I see?”

I shrugged.

“I cannot get these people to listen to me, Michael.” She pulled up some bark and sat next to me. Due to the curve in the trunk, she was facing away slightly at an angle. “I fear by the time they figure out what is going on…it will be too late.”

“You’ve warned them, Azile. You can’t force them to fight.”

“I could,” she said absently.

“Like zombies?” I asked, then dropped it. “You’ve warned them. And if I know anything, they will at least prepare. They may not believe you or want to believe you, but they will still want to protect their own even if the threat is minute. They will post more guards, they will make more weapons,
and they’ll fix or improve any holes in their defense.

“That won’t be enough. Xavier will lay waste to everything.”

“Why do Lycan have names? That makes no sense.”

“I see the way the girl looks at you.”

This time I opened my eyes. “That’s an abrupt change of subject. Are you talking about Lana or Bailey?”

“Both. Lana has fallen for you. Bailey eyes you suspiciously…she does not truly believe who you say you are or your intentions.”

“Well, she’s the smarter of the two then.”

“And what of Lana?” Azile asked.

“Seriously, Azile?”

“Then you won’t mind this,” she said as she moved in,
kissing me tenderly on the lips. I almost pulled back – the betrayal to Tracy almost too much to bear. It was that contact, the basic human connection that kept me there. Although, on further reflection, I was a half-vamp and she was a witch. How much humanity was involved?

Oggie had since gotten up and positioned himself so that his head was near to my own. Our kiss was broken when Oggie decided he wanted to join in. The magic was broken the moment that large swath of tongue rode up my chin, across my lips and the side of my face.