No Such Thing As Werewolves (24 page)

Blair turned off the faucet and followed.

“That will help you, but what about me? I don’t have a backup, and I doubt Mohn is going to let me pick it up from the pyramid,” Blair said as he trailed after her. She made for the door but glanced over her shoulder to indicate she was listening. “Do you have a plan to get me on a plane in Acapulco?”

“Yes, and we’ll talk about it on the way. Come on, we have to get out of here,” she replied, cracking the door and peering outside. “I don’t see any lights on out there. The neighbors are probably too afraid to get involved, but I’m sure they’ve already called the police.”

“Let’s get moving, then. We can run along the beach. There shouldn’t be anyone there, and the waves will wash away our trail,” he said. Liz darted down the porch and into the night. If not for his new senses, he would have lost her. Even as it was, he could barely track her form as she sprinted across the road, toward the pounding waves.

He trailed after, low and quiet. Here and there he detected a heartbeat, low and steady as if its owner were asleep. That surprised him. He’d expected the quiet little town to erupt like a kicked anthill after the shotgun blast and the wife’s screaming. Still, he wasn’t one to question good fortune. He sprinted after Liz, closing the gap shortly after his newly acquired sandals began to crunch the sand.

“You asked if I had a plan,” Liz said, half of her face illuminated by the heavy moon above. “We won’t be able to get you on an international flight, but we can probably convince them you lost your passport and to let us fly to Tijuana or Encinada. From there it’s easy to get you across the border into San Diego.”

“Guess we don’t have much choice. Let’s hope that it…” He instinctively turned toward the foothills they’d traversed the day before. He wasn’t sure how, but energy pulsed through him. His eyes grew warm. Thin moonlight now lit the land like dusk. Shrubs and boulders leapt at him with impossible clarity, as if he were gazing through a powerful set of binoculars.
 

In the distance a four-legged figure stood atop a rise. It was a wolf. A very large wolf.
 

“What is it?” Liz asked, scanning the horizon in the direction he was facing.

“There’s something out there, and it’s watching us,” Blair said, a chill working it’s way down his spine. “Liz, it’s a werewolf. I’m sure of it.”

Chapter 31- One Who Fights

Ahiga seethed with indignation, pacing back and forth across the rocky outcrop as he gazed at the tiny village next to the ocean. His heavy lupine body tingled with power from the moon above. The trickle of energy was thin, but he drank it in eagerly.

Impudent and powerful as only the Mother’s direct progeny could be, the interloper who’d usurped his link with the Mother glared defiantly back at him from the distant shore. In time the whelp might eclipse even him,
must
eclipse him if he were to fulfill the duty he had unknowingly usurped. It was a mantle that must be borne
now
, though there was no way the whelp could be prepared in time, or at all, if Ahiga couldn’t even reach him.

What moments remained were vital. The unblooded must be culled. The tainted must be eradicated before they began spreading their vile plague. Yet he could not do these things. He must train the whelp and awaken the Mother. It was a slender thread of hope that bore the weight of an entire world.
 

“Where do you run to, little cub?” he mused, studying the strange buildings clustered along the shore. A road stretched into the distance, made from some strange black substance. Alien, like much of this place.

The whelp moved along the shore instead of using the road. Why? Perhaps he fled the soldiers who’d conquered the Ark, or maybe he sought passage to another land. Perhaps both. There was a way to know, but Ahiga’s soul cried out at the crime of it. He could force his way into the whelp’s mind and pilfer his destination. Yet such an act against the blooded was the worst sort of violation. The Mother would be ashamed. But what cost if he did not? What if this fool fled to the far corners of the world, leaving the Mother to slumber through the coming apocalypse? Ahiga waged an internal war, each side marshaling its forces. What should he do?

The whelp trotted up the shore. He would be out of sight soon, breaking the visual link Ahiga needed to invade his mind. He must act quickly if he were to act at all. Would this betrayal haunt him later? Could the whelp accept him as a teacher after such a violation? It didn’t matter. He
must
learn where the whelp was going. He reached deep into the well of power within him, pulling forth a thick surge that resonated through him.
 

Ahiga channeled his will into a spike, focusing upon the whelp to the exclusion of all else. Then he struck, piercing the whelp’s pitiful defenses and slipping into his mind. The world disappeared, replaced by a flowing sea of memory. Experiences flitted by like birds, fluttering about in a multicolored storm. He ignored most, sifting through the mass to reach the most recent.
 

Something flashed by and he snagged it between two fingers, pausing to examine the memory. It showed a female shifting. The whelp wasn’t alone. Why hadn’t he spotted the female? Had she already mastered the shadows? Ahiga sifted more memories. Liz, that was her name. Blair, that of the whelp. They were running, hard and fast like prey before the hunt. Just like prey, running would mean their destruction unless he somehow intervened.

Where were they going? Ahiga sifted again, this time latching onto a snippet of conversation. Acapulco, a city to the north. They planned to travel by ship. Very well, he could do the same. He would catch them in Acapulco. The whelp would return to the Mother no matter the cost.

Who are you?
a voice thundered. The memories scattered, leaving Ahiga standing on an obsidian slab stretching to the horizon. Above him loomed the host he’d invaded. The whelp’s eyes glittered with righteous rage, and he stood ready despite his ignorance. Even the whelp’s instincts might be dangerous in the confines of his own mind. He held all the advantages here.

I am Ahiga. It means one who fights,
he explained, sketching a bow. Respect was the only thing that might salvage things.
Please accept my sincere apologies for touching your mind without permission. The need is dire enough that I have broken one of our greatest taboos. You must come to me, Blair. You have set great events in motion and time grows short. The Mother must be awakened.

You’re talking about the woman in the pyramid, aren’t you?
he asked, stance softening just a little.
 

Yes, and she can only be awakened by one who shares a link with the Ark. A link you forged when you touched the Mother’s hand,
Ahiga explained, reaching for words Blair might grasp. He sank into a cross-legged position and gestured for Blair to do the same.
Please, there is much you need to know. I cannot maintain this link long. Sit; join me.

Even if I wanted to wake her, I can’t,
Blair explained, ignoring the proffered spot.
She’s surrounded by soldiers. Going back would get me killed.

It will be dangerous, but you do not grasp the severity of the situation,
Ahiga replied, anger bubbling up. He struggled to keep it from his voice, with limited success
. If we do not wake the Mother, the world is doomed. Countless unblooded will fall to the enemy, each victim increasing their strength. If you continue to flee, this fate is inevitable. Can you live with that, whelp? It will be your fault.

My fault?
Blair thundered. His beast must have sunk deep roots for him to be able to summon so much rage this soon after his bonding.
You’ve turned me into a monster. I’ve slaughtered women. Children. Not an hour ago, Liz killed a man whose only crime was helping a couple of strangers. I don’t know what you did, but I’m going to find a way to undo it. Tell me, if I help you wake this Mother, can she cure me?

Cure? Are you mad? Of course not
, Ahiga replied. He rose gracefully to his feet. There was no reaching the whelp.

Then I want nothing to do with you,
the whelp thundered. A sudden gale sprang up, whipping at Ahiga with incredibly fury. It picked him up, hurling him from the whelp’s mind.

Chapter 32- Surprise Guests

Jordan shook his head, marveling at the three-story structure squatting at the base of the pyramid’s exterior. It hadn’t existed the previous morning. An army of black-uniformed Mohn employees had used a gigantic 3D printer to construct pieces. Like toddlers with Legos, they then assembled their field headquarters. They’d even found time to erect a small array of satellite dishes atop the roof. The dishes were aimed at the angry black clouds blanketing the sky. A storm was coming. How appropriate.

“Sir,” one of two gate guards said. Both snapped to attention as Jordan ducked under the doorway and into Ops. It was far more organized than the pavilion had been, with techs hurrying between machines. They were analyzing all the data gathered thus far. They’d learned nothing significant from what he could tell.

Jordan wove through rows of tables, angling for the one furthest from the door. Sheila hunched over a desk, open manila folders scattered everywhere. He picked up a photo from the one closest to him. It was some of the vivid hieroglyphs discovered in the main chamber. “This is Professor Smith’s work. Have you had any luck with his notes?”
 

“Some,” Sheila drawled in her peculiar yet endearing way. “I don’t have a true translation since we lack their alphabet, but the fact that they used pictograms is helpful. Blair laid the groundwork for a few dozen symbols, and I’ve expanded on that. I’ve focused mostly on the inner chamber, and I don’t like what I’m learning. I’m starting to suspect why this place was built, but I’m not confident enough to share the research with the team. I need more data.”

“What does your gut tell you?” he asked. Science was great, but it was intuition that had kept him alive.

“That we’ve stumbled into something we don’t understand,” she said, spinning her chair around to face him. She straightened her glasses. “This place is massive. It’s clear from the sarcophagus chamber that this place is much bigger than we initially guessed. We have no idea how deep underground it goes. Building something like this would take the concerted effort of nations to duplicate today, assuming we could even do it.” Her face paled. “I’ve also realized something, and it scares me. We dated the pyramid by the sediment it was buried in, but the truth is we have no idea how long it was buried. This thing’s true age could be much older than the thirteen-thousand-year-old sediment layer.”

“How much older?” he asked, unsure why she was alarmed. To him old was old. What did a few millennia matter, give or take?

“I don’t know. What I do know is that they clearly intended for it to awaken at a specific date and time. The question is why. What was significant about that date?” she asked, though he sensed the question was rhetorical. Obviously she had a theory. Sheila plowed on. “You have to have heard all that garbage about 2012 being the end of the world. What a lot of people don’t know is why that year matters so much. It marks the end of the long count in the Mayan calendar. According to their mythology, it marked the end of the old world and the beginning of the new, and they weren’t the only ones to leap to that conclusion.”

Pieces clicked together in Jordan’s head. It wasn’t accidental that Mohn had sent them to an empty ravine just moments before the pyramid had appeared. Somehow his employers had known to expect it. That suggested they knew something about Sheila’s mysterious date.

“Have you ever heard that old song, ‘The Age of Aquarius,’” she asked, humming the name of the song to a very familiar melody. Jordan’s mother had loved the musical
Hair
, so he’d heard the song often, growing up.

“Yeah, I know it,” he said, stroking the stubble he hadn’t had time to deal with. “What does a bad song from the ‘60s have to do with this ancient culture?”

“The Age of Aquarius is supposed to begin soon, or to have already begun. Scholars hotly debate when we’ll enter it. It’s part of something called the Galactic Procession, divided into thirteen parts. Each corresponds to a Zodiac sign,” she explained, bouncing in her chair excitedly. “Each sign lasts about two thousands years, which means we complete a galactic rotation once every twenty-six thousand years. The Mayans knew that. So did the Greeks. So did a lot of ancient cultures. What if that knowledge trickled down from this ancient culture? What if the pyramid came back at this time for a reason? It could have been programmed, for lack of a better term, to return when the new age began.”

“It clearly had a trigger of some sort, but why come back now? What exactly happens when we enter a new age? And why leave a trap that turns people into werewolves?” Jordan asked, leaning against her desk and crossing his arms over his chest. “There are dozens of sightings already. From Mexico to Argentina. There was even an attack in Texas at a clinic. The media had a field day with that one.”

Sheila paled at his last words, avoiding his gaze. She seemed to collect herself after a moment.

“I have a theory about why the werewolves were created,” Sheila said softly. She looked shaken. “Blair’s notes mention some sort of ancient enemy. What if the werewolves were engineered to fight something?”
 

“Like what?” he replied, chilled at the possibility of an enemy that required such a ferocious creation.