The Waking (The Upturned Hourglass) (17 page)

Valie put the other hand where its counterpart had been. Maybe if he didn’t say it out loud, it wouldn’t be real.

Jack realized Valie’s intentions in keeping him silent—but there was no avoiding the truth now. Firmly and deliberately, he lifted her hand, caught hold of both wrists, and held to her tightly.

“Valie, I
am
a werewolf.” He said the words slowly, like he was speaking a foreign language to her. “I’m sorry. I’m rushing you into such a revelation—I know you are not prepared for this.” He could read the fear in her eyes; he could
smell
the fear. But she hadn’t tried to pull away. He hurriedly continued.

“And I know you think I’m crazy, or that you’re crazy. I know that it seems like the whole world is turning upside down. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to deal with those feelings. I have more important things to talk to you about.”

Valie knew that her mouth was agape.
More important than this assertion that you are some
freak
?
she thought. Valie closed her eyes and shook her head. This was not happening. It wasn’t possible. She was back in her bed having a terrible nightmare. She was going to wake up.
Please, let me wake up.

Now the girl did try to wrench her hands free, but Jack only tightened his grip with his powerful hands.

“Valentine,” Jack murmured her name softly and sweetly. Valie was compelled by his tone and opened her eyes to meet his mesmerizing, pleading gaze. “Please,” he whispered. She released her indrawn breath at last and managed to relax slightly despite the knowledge that she would regret her next words.

“What do you want?”

The coffee shop across the street from the school that Jack took her to—ironically the first place she’d seen him—was warm.
And oddly deserted. It was cold outside. The place should have been packed.

“Where is everyone?” Valie asked nervously, as Jack led her by the hand through the front door of the shop.

“We politely asked them to leave,” Jack said matter-of-factly. Valie knew he was lying, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the details. “We needed a…
secluded
place to talk and you seem to like it here.”

Jack led Valie to a table near the back of the room. Shane was there, sitting beside Noah. There was a familiarity about the boy that had distracted her all day and it was in that moment, as she looked in those eyes, that Valie suddenly recalled the strange, wolf-like dog from the park many nights ago.

“No way!” she gasped aloud.

Observant,
Jack thought. He turned on Noah, a hint of triumph in his eyes, and continued, “And
that
is why we don’t approach them as wolves,” he said sternly. Valie didn’t fully comprehend his meaning, of course, but she thought she got the gist of it.

“Hi, Valie,” Shane greeted, making an unsuccessful effort at pleasantries. She certainly seemed less perky than usual and was almost lackluster in her gray overcoat and old jeans. The girl attempted a smile, but the weakness of it only felt like a bad omen.

“Hi, Shane,” Valie murmured timidly.

Shane glanced nervously at Jack, trying to read his face. “So . . . how are you doing?”

Valie laughed aloud hoarsely; she couldn’t help herself.
How
was she doing?
 

“I’m doing great,” Valie lied in a sardonic tone.

Shane almost looked sheepish. “I guess that was a dumb question. . .It’s just that, well, you seem pretty calm considering.”

Valie, knowing she was anything but calm, laughed without humor. “Maybe it’s having grown up with my friend, Luci—she’s a bit obsessed with everything otherworldly.”

“Ah, yes,” Jack said as he took a seat and indicated Valie should do the same. “The moth.”

Valie paused in her motion to sit down.
“Moth?”

“Luci is what we call a moth,” he replied, waving away his words with his hand like they were inconsequential.

“Which is?”

Jack seemed reluctant to continue, but he finally did. “A moth is a relatively normal human being who is somehow drawn to the supernatural world like a moth to a flame. We don’t understand why it is, or if there is any pattern to who might be a moth, but Luci is definitely one of them.”

Valie shook her head definitively. “She just likes strange things, that’s all.”

Jack looked at her seriously. “She is a moth. Trust me.”

“And how do you know
that
?” Valie asked stubbornly.

Jack unexpectedly jabbed his thumb in Noah’s direction. “He’s how I know. And if you’re really going to argue about silly little things like this, I can’t imagine what you’re going to do when we tell you the whole story.
Now. I
need
you to be open-minded.”

Valie, knowing she would never believe anything about her best friend, her friend that she had known for over a
decade
, agreed and tried to focus on the real questions she wanted answered. 

“Are you all . . .?” she let the question trail off suggestively. She wasn’t quite prepared to use the word ‘werewolf’ in casual conversation.

Jack nodded solemnly. He was studying Valie intently, almost waiting for her to make a run for it at any moment.

However, to her own surprise, Valie had no urge to escape.  As little as she knew about these three—and she really had no reason to trust them—still, she found them interesting to say the least; but, perhaps more than anything,  their presence was a sort of comfort to her. Surely, they were dangerous, but Valie somehow felt in control. Although, the deserted coffee shop was
kind of creeping her out, as was Jack’s guarded posture.

“Okay, so what is it you guys want?” Valie asked, more composed than before.

Jack cleared his throat, surprisingly nervous. “We want . . .,” he began in a formal manner, “that is, we
need
to warn you about a certain threat . . . a danger to you that . . . has been discovered.” He broke off and took a deep breath. “Our presence here has been a threat to you, but now an even greater one has appeared.”

Valie held up her hand, cutting off the
wolf-boy’s rehearsed speech. Jack was getting slightly annoyed with the way this was going, anyway, and crossed his arms defensively.

“What?” he demanded crossly.

Valie ignored the gesture. “You do realize I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“That’s what I’m trying to explain,” Jack shot back in frustration. He didn’t know how to do this and the girl wasn’t helping at all. It wasn’t as if he had ever done this before.

“Why don’t you try to start from the beginning, Jack?” Noah suggested.

“We
don’t
have an unlimited amount of time, Noah. The others
will be back in a day or two at most.” Apprehensively, Shane nodded in agreement.

“
Days,
” Valie repeated. “Start from the beginning. Please.”

The Lycan clenched his jaw and exhaled slowly. He and Valie were staring at each other, both determined. Finally Shane rolled her eyes in exasperation. The blonde leaned forward on the table and Valie shifted her gaze to meet Shane’s ice blue eyes. Instantly, Valie ascertained the serious of the situation. Shane was not going to mince words.

“Here’s the deal, Valentine.”

“Valie.”

“Right. Valie. Here’s what you need to know. We’re werewolves. You’ve seen us in our wolf form and in our human form.  It might be hard to accept, but I’m fairly sure you do believe that what we’re revealing to you is true. Yes, we’ve got some pretty extraordinary abilities other than basic transformation, which we can do at will.  Yeah, we have to change at the full moon. No, we do not go around slaughtering masses of human beings when we do.”

At this point, Valie was just trying to keep up, but Shane, apparently, wasn’t finished. The words were still pouring out.

“So what it boils down to is this. The reason you’re being told about this wonderful world of weird is because your father, Isaac Quinn, is our pack leader. He’s a werewolf, too. And here’s the real kicker—werewolves aren’t supposed to have intimate relationships with humans, like Isaac did with
your
mother. It’s strictly forbidden in the Occult world. So you’re an illegitimate child in
both
worlds. Except it’s worse,
much
worse to be one in ours.”

Jack snarled so threateningly at Shane, the girl finally stopped and sat back in a huff. 

“Very sensitive, Shane,” he growled, and then turned back to Valie. “The thing is, sweets,” he continued more gently, “By Lycanthrope—that is, werewolf—standards, by Lycan
law,
you’re not supposed to exist.  It’s
illegal
for you to exist.”

“I don’t understand,” Valie murmured.  She looked round at the three perfectly human faces. “You
know
my father?  My father is one of you? How is that possible?
Is
it even possible? You’re wrong. I mean . . . no. Just, no. No, no, no.” Valie started to shake her head rapidly back and forth, back and forth. She rubbed at the charm on her bracelet without thinking. In another moment, she was queasy and sick and felt like she was going to puke. Her body was shaking violently.

Noah spoke up in worry. “Valie, are you going to be okay? You’re looking kind of . . . green.”

She
felt
green. 

“Why don’t we get some air?” Jack suggested quietly, but pulled her up onto her feet. Valie ran out a side entrance into the small alleyway beside the coffee shop and fell on her knees.

She threw up everything she’d eaten recently—which felt like a lot more than she remembered. By the time she was finished, she felt as if she had nothing left inside her—only the incessant shakes and shivers remained. At last, she stood and Shane handed her a handkerchief which she’d retrieved from Jack. Valie wiped her mouth and chin, then spit one last time on the ground. 

Sheepishly, Valie looked at the three werewolves hovering close by. “You don’t want this back.”  It wasn’t a question.

Jack, who was a little farther back than the others, smiled.  “No.”

“Thanks.”

He nodded, but in an instant his face grew serious once more.  Valie followed suit.

“My father’s a werewolf.” Valie tried the words out for herself. They felt foreign—her voice even sounding strange to speak them. “And he is your leader or something? And when you were talking about some danger being posed to me you were referring to . . . ?”

The three Lycans looked at each other, but Noah spoke.

“Your father.
Isaac. He wants to kill you.”

Valie gave a single short laugh, as if the breath had been knocked out of her. “Not only is my father a Lyco-whatever-you-call-it, but he wants me
dead
?  You have
got
to be kiddin
g
me.”

Shane spoke up before Jack could stop her. “Like I said, Valie, it was against the law for him to have been with your mother. He could be punished—
killed
—just for that. For a Lycan to have a child with a human is punishable by death—unless, he erases all evidence.”

“Meaning me.”

“Meaning you.”

“Why
now
? Why after eighteen years?”

Jack shrugged his shoulders. “That detail isn’t clear. There couldn’t have been any threat posed to him previously or he would
have. . .well, you know. We think it is because he’s seeking a higher rank within our system of government and he’s worried what discovery of your existence could mean for not only his chances but his life, “ Jack stopped in mid-sentence, because Valie was once more shaking her head.

“You guys are insane!” Valie yelled in defiance as she pushed past Jack to leave. She wanted to be out of that alley and away from those that wanted to tear her life apart. She wished they could take back all that they had told her and reassure her
that it wasn’t true. But something in her gut told her that no amount of protestation on her part could prove their story false.

“Where are you going?”

Valie didn’t reply as she walked away from them down the street. She knew they would follow, just as she knew they had been following her for who knew how many days….

“Sweets, you
need
to come with us. I don’t know how long we have before Isaac will try to— ”

“Kill me,” she fini
shed without slowing her pace.

Jack became immediately frustrated. “This is not a
joke
, Valie. You have no idea what you’re doing.”

“I know
exactly
what I’m doing,” Valie said certainly upon sighting her best friend’s house. “I’m leaving.”

Valie couldn’t decide what scared her more, the fact that she was starting to believe Jack and all his claims, or the fact that, deep down she knew that the mystery of the three had appealed to her all along.