The Waking (The Upturned Hourglass) (2 page)

The girl sneezed three times.

Great
, Jack thought as he walked on with silent footfall.
She has an aptitude for sneezing.

“Jack,” said a familiar voice. He turned to find Noah a pace behind. The cute, sandy-haired boy was younger than Jack, but the newest pack-mate and still learning.

“You’re getting better at that,” Jack noted.

Quizzically, Noah cocked his head to one side. “I’m surprised you didn’t sense me coming.”

“Can’t you see I’m riveted elsewhere?” he replied sarcastically, not even bothering to whisper.

Noah nodded to the girl that was walking up the steps into an old-style apartment building. “You don’t like her.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Why?”

Jack sighed heavily. “She’s
dull
. We’ve been watching her for days and she has an ordinary, human life and there doesn’t seem to be anything special about her. She’s a waste of time. I’d rather be with the rest of the pack back in Washington rather than on this apparently
pointless
mission.”

Taking the hint, Noah settled into his usual stoicism and Jack was in too bad of a mood to care.

Time passed. The shadows lengthened. Still, they watched the third floor windows of the apartment where she lived with her grandfather in silence until a thought occurred to the younger.

“Do you know when Isaac will…
”

“Change her,” Jack finished without care.

“Yes.”

“No, I don’t know. We just have to follow the routine. Usually, we watch the Mark for a week or so. Sometimes we may have to get closer to them, get to know them, in order to make sure of the choice.  We report everything to Isaac. Since Isaac, is the only Fated of the pack, he ultimately decides when the Marks are changed.”

The boy digested that for a moment. When he spoke again, his expression was troubled.

“I can’t bite anyone and make them one of us, right? It only works for Isaac?”

Jack liked Noah. Though, in some ways, the youngest Lycan hadn’t adjusted well to the Change. No one knew Noah’s true feelings about himself as a werewolf. Jack could sense that Isaac didn’t trust Noah, even though he had been chosen specially, just as had all the rest of the pack. Noah could read others, but no one could read him. So Jack again answered the question patiently.

Jack nodded, but continued to watch the apartment building. “Only the Fated are reborn with the ability to induce the Change,” he recited.

In silence, they continued to watch the girl’s apartment for another hour. Everything in town grew still and quiet. Darkness descended well before the moon rose.

Suddenly, a small rustling in some bushes sounded
directly behind them, but only Noah turned in its direction. Out from the deep shadows, stepped a man extraordinary to say the least. He was of exceeding stature and his hair, coal black, was run through with the wet of the autumn-night air. His skin was waxen, but rough and durable in texture. His eyes glowed bright amber, like candle-light through tinted glass; the afterglow was a side-effect of having recently transformed back into his human form, but the strikingly unique color of his eyes stayed with the man as a human or wolf. 

“Isaac,” Jack greeted without turning.

“Hello, Jack,” the older werewolf replied in a hushed rumble of a voice. “How are you cub?” Isaac inquired of Noah in a formal tone. Isaac’s distaste for Noah made Jack wonder why he’d changed him at all. One day, he would have to ask him.

“Fine, sir.
Just learning.”

“Jack is an excellent teacher, is he not?  Jack was himself an apt pupil, willing and quick—so very attentive to detail.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Until that incident a couple years back.”

Noah turned a questioning eye to Jack. The boy hadn’t yet heard that story. Nonetheless, he replied with a quick “Yes, sir.”

“How many times am I going to have to tell you to not call me ‘sir’?” Isaac’s voice was harsh. And then in a lighter tone, as if knowing that perhaps he spoke too sharply, “It makes one feel old.”
             

“You are coming up on a few centuries, now, aren’t you?
Three? Four?” Jack ribbed comfortably in an effort to break the tension. Noah used to be surprised at such mocking, but no more. He understood Jack had known Isaac long enough to realize his limits and know when he could press them.

“Only two and a half, thank you,” Isaac laughed. “And you know that’s not
that
old for a Fated like myself.”

“Anything in particular you would like for your birthday?”

Isaac’s laugh faded. He too stared up into the window from which Jack’s eyes hadn’t moved throughout their conversation.

“Her,” Isaac said quietly. “We need
her
.” He turned to Jack and fixed him with his most authoritative look. “Jack, I want you to continue Mark-watch yourself. Don’t let any details slip past you and report anything out of the ordinary to me.”

Jack clenched his teeth. He would never understand how the Fated chose those they did. Supposedly a rare genetic marker, which only the Fated could detect, indicated those candidates who could actually handle the Change. It was an intense process, to say the least.  The Fated had to be as discriminating as possible with these carriers, but at some point quantity had proved more important than quality.  Isaac remained one of the few who believed that the Lycanthrope race would, in the long run, be harmed by “unworthy” individuals being added to the packs.  And in many ways he was right, many
of the other packs Jack had encountered were more like uneducated, testosterone-fueled gangs rather than the militaristic, honor-seeking packs of tradition.

Jack nodded.
“As you wish. I will need to get closer over the next couple of days.” As an afterthought, he added, “How was Terrence and Eliza’s anniversary?” Jack’s voice was dull. He couldn’t care less, really.

“They were locked in the bedroom all day,” the elder replied with equal disinterest. He changed the subject, his mood gone sour with the mention of the girl. “I grow tired of being up during these daylight vigils as I’m sure you do as well. Terrence will be here at
midnight to relieve you. As unnatural as it is, try to get some sleep before dawn. You will resume tomorrow.”

Having had the last word, the old Lycanthrope took to the darkness in a soundless ripple of shadow, leaving the two watchers alone once again. 

“How old are you?” Noah asked of Jack, confusion plain in his voice.

“Twenty-two.”

Noah’s brow furrowed.

“You don’t look six years older than me.”

“And you don’t look six years younger. Lycanthropy distorts age.”

Noah thought to himself.

“How old are Terrence and Eliza if Isaac is so old?”

Jack glanced at him and shrugged. “What does it matter? Eliza is near one hundred, I suppose and Terrence must be almost eighty.” Jack couldn’t remember their birthdays, though he doubted they did either. They didn’t much care for aging.

Noah’s expression became blank as he stared into the shadows. “They don’t like me any more than Isaac does,” he mused. “I thought some time away from the rest of the pack would be a good thing, that I wouldn’t feel as…different. But the truth is, if Isaac doesn’t trust me, then neither will anyone else.” True to his nature, Noah’s tone was dismissive—no trace of bitterness or sadness in the comment. It was just a fact he had decided to share.

Jack shrugged. “True, but they are part of our pack. We
aren’t like a human family; they don’t have any obligation to
like
any one of us. You don’t have to like them, either.”

Noah remained dissatisfied. “Pack…family…” he muttered. “What’s the difference? Isaac says there isn’t one.”

Envy was plain on Jack’s features. Of course the boy wouldn’t know about family and its inevitable loss. Noah’s parents had died when he was very young, leaving him with nothing but a few, vague childhood memories of what it felt like to belong.

“One creates life,” Jack said solemnly. “The other changes it, disfigures it,
makes it into something it was never supposed to be.”

“But all I’ve heard over and over again is that Lycanthropes are believers of Fate. Wouldn’t that mean we were meant for this?”

Of course, the boy was trying hard to believe, but perhaps he needed a dose of reality.

Jack spoke quietly, but with conviction in his words. “The Fated believe that they have a
right
to do that, to ruin people’s human life in order to continue the Lycanthrope race. The others think that, too. They think that it’s our
destiny
. But I, for one, do not believe that this was my destiny. I am a werewolf; I accept that—call it an accident, or just plain bad luck. I refuse to believe that I was meant to be a monster. But you can think what you want.” The hostility in Jack’s tone made even Noah uncomfortable.

The two sank into silence once again as they watched and waited.

The light in the girl’s apartment across the street went out. She must have been going to bed.

“And so the night begins,” Jack sighed. “Another glorious night of doing nothing but…” He cut off when Noah grabbed his arm.

Out of the three-story window crept the slender girl—
his
Mark. She was hesitantly climbing out onto the ledge.

“What’s she doing?” Jack hissed. He’d promised Isaac the girl. If she was about to make a suicide attempt he would get his ass kicked into the next century. Jack began to move forward;
he’d catch her if he had to.

“Wait!” Noah stopped Jack’s forward motion. “I think she’s climbing down the tree.”

He was right. The girl jumped a good six feet through the air and limberly caught hold of the nearest branch of an old, massive oak.

As she dangled there Jack thought,
She’s insane. No wonder Isaac wants her…

Silently, but as nimble as a cat, the young girl maneuvered herself sideways in order to grasp the sturdy trunk of the old tree;  and then she began lowering herself branch by branch toward the ground. The lowest branch was still some ten feet high. Jack involuntarily grinned—an impossible drop for a human without risking a major injury or worse.
So close and yet so far away…

For an instant, he wondered if she could climb back up as quickly as she had climbed down. Perhaps he could use this as an opportunity to make contact. But just as these thoughts ran through his mind, the unexpected happened. She dropped to the ground—and landed, knees bent, and totally unscathed. As fast as she landed, she was back on her feet, hurrying up the sidewalk back toward the rest of the town.

Jack stood, mouth agape. That was not humanly possible.

“Umm.
Wow,” Noah breathed.

“That would be an understatement.” Perhaps the girl was special after all…Whatever the case, he was going to follow her. “Where could she possibly be going at this time of night? She only got home an hour ago.”

The target was moving so rapidly that the pair had to run to catch up with her. She was fast, too; though, the young werewolves followed her easily. They covered several blocks in a short amount of time.

When they reached the downtown area, the girl’s pace slowed.  A large tree-filled community park bisected the central section of the town and the sidewalk led directly through the park. However, once inside the wrought-iron gates, she confidently veered off of the path to her right into the pitch blackness of a thick stand of old oaks. She did not seem as self-
conscious as she had that afternoon. She walked confidently into the pitch black and took a deep breath of the cold night air to slow her thudding heart.

She obviously was using the darkness to conceal herself, so Jack and Noah took more care as well. The Mark could not become aware of their presence.

The girl emerged from the trees onto a broad expanse of open grass. She walked forward to a grassy knoll and lay down in the damp grass, winding her arms back around her head, simply staring off into space.

Still concealed in the trees, Jack and Noah looked on and waited.

Jack followed her gaze to the moon, a small sliver in the sky. What was she, a star-gazer? Who snuck out in the middle of the night to look at the moon? Well, other than the obvious…

“She’s going to freeze,” Noah
observed, his voice inaudible to human ears. His gray eyes fixated on the jacket-less figure stretched out on the grass. The girl wasn’t even wearing long-sleeves…

As he spoke, the chilly October breeze gained momentum, setting up a howling in the trees. An involuntary shiver ran through her small frame; but, otherwise, the girl was heedless of the frosty warning. Both watchers were surprised when she began to hum softly to herself.

Jack became aware of Noah’s transformation too late to stop him. A young, lean, fawn-colored wolf suddenly loped out of the trees toward the Mark.

“Noah! Get back here!” Jack hissed, but it was too late. “Isaac’s going to kill me,” he mumbled, resigned. He stood and watched his protégé’s approach with apprehension, preparing himself for whatever the girl’s reaction might be.