The Last Alignment: Cry of the Scorpions

The Last Alignment: Cry of
the Scorpions

Nathaniel Stewart

Published by Nathaniel Stewart at
Smashwords

Cover by Ronnell D. Porter

Copyright © 2012 Nathaniel
Stewart. All rights reserved.

All characters, places, concepts and ideas
that are presented in this work are fictitious and derive from the
imagination and creativity of the author. Any likenesses or
resemblances that are present are purely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License
Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal
enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to
other people. If you would like to share this book with another
person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If
you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not
purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com
and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work
of this author.

Acknowledgements

Dr. Michael Joslin, for unknowingly giving me
the kick in the butt that I needed to finally start writing this
story, and also serving as an editor.

Wesley Saylors, for his valuable guidance and
service as an editor.

Diana “Dee” Thomas, for her bottomless
reserve of positivity and encouragement.

Dedication

For Diane,

As will be all other books in this series for
her never-ending love and belief in her “baby boy.”

Further
Acknowledgements

Olivia Cahoon, Peter Sauls, Jared Lupton,
D.J. VanHoy, Emily Guenthner, Princess Neely, Rachael Oakes, Dubois
Hines, and Lockwood Ray.

Chapter
1

Hektor’s Return

On a still, breezeless, and humid late
summer’s night, the only living thing awake and moving about was an
old, large, shaggy stray dog that was standing on its hind legs
with its front paws perched on top of a plastic green trash can.
Stomach grumbling, he had long since abandoned his attempts to get
the lid off and settled for calmly sniffing and licking about.
Sometimes residents would leave little trays of scraps or cheap dog
food that they purchased with spare change at the top of their
driveways; Chase was considered to be a “neighborhood dog.”
However, none had done so that night and after a minute or two,
Chase was back down on all fours solemnly but hopefully moving on
to the next house when something very strange happened. Something
so odd and unexpected that it made the poor dog yelp loudly with
fright and lay down submissively as if ready to finally greet death
after a long life of not having proper care.

Before Chase now stood a tall well-built man
with narrow shoulders, overgrown raven hair, and pale blue eyes
that were keenly fixed on what was no doubt the nicest house on
Falaco Way. The man looked as if he had been stranded somewhere
dilapidated for a considerable amount of time and then somehow
managed to find his way back to civilization. He wore a dingy white
shirt that had holes in it, filthy, ripped brown pants, and he was
barefoot. Blisters and cuts covered his feet and his lips were
cracked and chapped. His strong hands were balled into fists and
his stance was tranquil, mirrored only by the dog that was on its
belly in the middle of the street behind him who did not dare to
move. The man walked forward, his movement as sudden as his arrival
that Chase started barking vociferously. In less than a second the
man was on bended knee with his hand firmly clasped around the
dog’s nose and mouth. When the stray’s mind and sight finally
caught up he panicked worse than ever, but once again Chase lowered
himself meekly onto his stomach. The man squeezed the dog’s face
petulantly and then let go, eyes still surveying the house.
Whimpering, Chase stood up and took a few wary steps back.

“
Leave,” the man ordered
with a slight gesture of his hand, and without an ounce of
hesitation Chase dashed down the street.

Hektor rose leisurely and carefully,
fervently Sensing for his old friend’s essence. He allowed his mind
to comb every corner of the house and learned that there were only
two people currently occupying it which was good news indeed, but
he needed his old comrade to be awake and alert. Once he found him,
Hektor latched on to him like a hungry, frantic snake and
focused.

Victor
?
Victor
,
can you hear me
?

A few seconds passed.

Victor
?
Are you there
?

Another few moments went
by and there was still no response which made him grow even more
uneasy.
Victor
!?

H
-
Hektor
?
Is that you
!?

He sighed with relief and
joy at hearing Victor’s voice, though Victor sounded utterly
stunned and alarmed to hear his.
Yes
,
it
is
,
and I am
presently standing in front of your house
.

But
…
that
’
s impossible
.

Before he could respond he heard the
slightest click and noticed that in what was a motionless scene,
the curtain behind the window on a side door of Victor’s house was
moving.

Victor
!
Someone is
-

His telepathy was interrupted by a faint
crash. In an instant Hektor had completely burst through and
shattered the outsized living room window and was on the second
floor of the house in time to see Victor kick a rather large man
square in the chest sending him flying through the hallway wall and
into a room.

“
Hektor, there’s two of
them! I need to protect Justine!”

“
Where-”

His question was answered earlier than he
could ask it.

A hand roughly took hold of his right ankle
and then he was airborne over the banister. He managed to land
upright in the glass-covered living room, bits slicing and lodging
themselves into the bottoms of his feet. Someone seized Hektor’s
head covering his eyes and he was then slammed so hard into a wall
that pieces of it flew about him.

Hektor was now face to face with a blonde
woman whose hands were now around his neck with a strength that did
not belong to her. The woman started laughing hysterically;
squeezing all the harder yet Hektor remained calm. She was
oblivious to the fact that while she would have killed any other
normal human being seconds ago, she was doing no harm to him
because she was not nearly strong enough. And then, a scream rang
through the house and Hektor knew at once that it had come from
Victor. The woman laughed even louder, her madness distorting her
face and Hektor saw her for what she really was. He grabbed both of
her wrists and gradually pulled her hands from around his neck, her
nails leaving deep scratches in their wake as she tried to resist
him. Hektor felt blood start to run down his chest but he braced
himself, and once her hands were far enough apart he head-butted
her directly on the forehead sending blood, bits of skull, and
brain-matter soaring through the air. The woman stumbled backward
and began to quake, and Hektor was upstairs before her body hit the
ground.

He went straight to Justine’s room. Her door
was ajar and broken but more importantly, there was an awful
silence. “Victor?”

No one answered.

Hektor breathed deeply to compose himself.
He Sensed the area beyond the door for life forces and only found
one which meant that two of three who were once living were now
dead. He was met with unexplainable relief at the essence that he
did feel, but that relief also came with a terrible realization. He
stood there for a moment as he was unsure of whether he should go
in or not, but he became resolute and took the entire door off of
its hinges as if he were simply plucking a flower and tossed it
down the hallway.

Victor was standing at the foot of Justine’s
bed in a puddle of blood. He was holding a severed brawny arm in
his left hand, and in his right was the head of the large man whom
he had kicked through the wall minutes ago. Hektor’s eyes turned to
the fragile white-haired woman lying in bed whose stunning light
green eyes were unmoving.

“
He got in before I could
seal the door and went straight for her,” Victor said looking down
at his wife. Hektor walked to the right side of Justine with deep
sadness and took her delicate hand, careful not to look at Victor
as he recounted what happened. “He grabbed her by the neck…that was
probably all it took.”

Victor was right. Justine had aged
considerably; her once blonde-gray hair was now the purest white
and she had an air of fragility about her that could only come with
acute old age. Dejectedly, Hektor closed her eyes and took her
blanket and placed it on the floor. “I g-grabbed that same arm and
I ripped it from his body,” Victor continued. “And after that…his
head.” At that last statement, Hektor finally looked at Victor who
had so many tears flowing down his cheeks that the two streams
joined at the point of his chin, and the blood that covered his
face mixed with his tears as they fell. Hektor looked away and
gently slid his hands under Justine’s back and knees, but then he
paused feeling tactless. He loved her, but he was not her spouse.
“No, you do it,” Victor said trembling. “I’m covered in blood. I
don’t want this shit to touch her.” Hektor nodded, lifted her up,
and compassionately placed her in the middle of the blanket on the
floor. Sirens sounded in the distance.

“
Victor, we have to
hurry,” he said taking extra care in wrapping his good friend’s
wife. “We can go to Lillarey. My house should still be there.”
Without a word, Victor dropped the extremities he was holding and
left the room.

~*~*~

They drove in silence for a little under an
hour. Hektor kept his gaze forward and did not dare to look at
Victor, or rather, he did not care to look at him. Hektor knew what
was going through Victor’s head and so he started preparing himself
for the onslaught that he knew was coming, but how was he to answer
the questions that he knew Victor had when he was not sure of the
answers? The last thing that he remembered was sacrificing himself
and yet here he was riding with his old friend whose wife was in
the backseat dead, and the thought that it could possibly be partly
his fault was almost too much. It was a while before Hektor decided
to finally speak and in an effort to be gentle, he was careful to
keep his voice light. “To whom does this car belong?”

Victor continued to stare at the road for a
moment and then said delicately, “It’s mine. I bought it from a
neighbor and had the keys already. Just hadn’t picked it up
yet.”

“
I see.”

“
The neighbor is on
vacation with his family,” Victor continued. “I’ll call him
tomorrow and leave him a message saying I got it a few days ago so
he won’t report it stolen when he gets back on Saturday. And the
house is clean,” he added. “Well, the blood and the bodies anyway.
To the police, it should look as if someone broke into an empty
house and roughed it up a bit.”

Hektor lowered his gaze to his lap. Victor’s
voice was so raspy and weak with grief that he was overtaken with
guilt. “I am sorry about Justine. I should have stayed upstairs
with you.”

“
I don’t think you had a
choice in the matter. I seem to remember you being launched over
the banister,” said Victor, but Hektor continued to hang his head.
“It’s alright, Hek. Justy was ninety-eight years old. She lived a
good and full life,” he said before clearing his throat. “It was
going to happen one of these days and I was ready for it. She had
been having some heart trouble over the last few years so I already
knew that as she got older it was only going to get worse,” Victor
said wiping his eyes on the back of his wrist. “I was pretty much
waiting for her to either have a heart attack or go into cardiac
arrest. But, this? I wasn’t prepared for this. My wife didn’t
deserve to be murdered.”

“
No, she did not,” Hektor
responded as he looked in the back seat. They drove in silence for
a little longer before they came to a red light. Then to his
surprise, Victor started chuckling. “What is it,” Hektor asked
trying to sound normal.

“
I told everyone in my
neighborhood that she was an aunt that I was taking care of,”
Victor said arbitrarily. Hektor kept his focus on the road, but
narrowed his eyes. He supposed that Victor must have seen his
expression because he added, “You saw Justy, Hektor. If I had told
everyone that she was my wife, they would’ve looked at me like I
was some sick, pathetic, lowlife asshole who got with an older
woman to get at her money. I mean, if you didn’t know me and I told
you I was a hundred and two, would you believe me?” Hektor turned
his head and examined Victor for the first time. He had few
wrinkles and aside from the blood that was now dried up on his
face, Victor still had a boyish quality to him. His hair was dark
brown with slight touches of gray all over and his eyes were still
every bit of the interesting dark blue color that he remembered. If
Hektor did not know him, he would have guessed that Victor was in
his mid-fifties.