The Waking (The Upturned Hourglass) (42 page)

A growl was heard followed by whimper of pain.

Jack burst into the room.

Valie lay in the smaller area behind the far side of the bed. Maxine stood across the room. Her presence obviously had not gone over well with the writhing girl.

“It wasn’t Max!” Shane cried, reading Jack’s stern expression, as she held Valie’s arms to the ground. The amber-eyed girl struggled against the restraint wildly. She neared success, but Noah aided the blonde, sitting on Valie’s legs while the girl thrashed. “I think it’s her claustrophobia!” Shane continued over the snarls issuing from Valie’s throat. “She knocked over the armoire ‘cause of Max and she freaked out when we came in. I accidentally closed the door.”

If Shane was correct Jack’s opening of the door should have relieved her worry. As it was, her resistant exertions did not diminish. 

“Get off of her,” Jack ordered.

Shane looked appalled. “Jack, you can’t be serious! She’ll tear any one of us apart. Look at her.”

“I am. I’m sure she can control it if we let her, but you’re just aggravating her efforts. Let her calm down.”

After a few tense moments, in which only Valie’s struggles were heard, the determined faith in Jack’s solemn azure eyes convinced the others of the worth in trying.

Jericho rushed in the door a filled syringe in his hand. Jack held up a warning hand. “Hold off. You and Maxine go downstairs. No offense, Max, but you’re not helping.”

With glances of apprehension, the two obeyed.

“Noah get off.”

“Jack…”

“Off.”

The boy rose.

With Valie’s legs free, Shane was unable to maintain her restraint of the girl. Exposed to Valie’s brutal strikes, she fled, hopping off of the girl’s chest and releasing her arms. Freed, Valie was up, faster than lightning. She snarled, arching her back like a cornered animal. No one would have believed her human. Only her physical features hadn’t given way to the hellion inside of her—yet.

“Valie,” Jack crooned.
“Sweets. Please.”

The girl growled, her eyes wildly searching the room for escape. Jack and the others were between her and freedom.

“Valie,” Jack said in his quietest whisper. “You’re alright. Fight it.”

His cobalt eyes pled with the vicious animal to no effect. Before he could react she launched herself from a standstill to the wall above the bed, clinging there for an instant with all fours before jumping to the doorway behind the three awe-struck Lycanthropes. She bypassed the stairs, taking off from the wooden guard-rail and landing cat-like on the lower floor where Max and
Jericho waited.

“Stop her!” Jack yelled from above.

Valie ran to the front door, but, refusing—or unable—to stop and open the door, she crashed through the adjacent window, running for the woods.

Maxine grabbed the syringe from
Jericho’s frozen hand and took off through the door and after the girl with inhuman speed.

Jack, Shane and Noah raced down the stairs after her, Jack’s
lithe form in the lead. After a mile out the door, they were losing ground on the racing unnatural pair. The three simultaneously changed, leaving a trail of clothes behind them.

As they sped through the forest, Jack could only think of one thing—they were no match for the creature that Valie was turning into. She was endowed with more strength and agility than they possessed cumulatively, even in her human form. Jack did not want to imagine what she would be like in her other sculpt; not as the girl he had come to care for, but a wolf with the indomitable spirit of their race raging inside. She would be terrifying and remarkable. She would be unstoppable. She would be a titan among men.

Isaac’s weapon would be born.

KIN

Isaac watched as the Council’s Lieutenant left the Heart house. The Fated leaned casually against a branch and laughed to himself. The wolfsbane at the base of the tree had done its work. He would have to thank Esmerelda the next time he used her services. She truly was a useful witch.

“Isaac,” Eliza hissed from the opposite side of the tree. The woman’s leg was splinted with stiff wood and bandage. A makeshift solution, but it worked. Getting her up into the tree had been a harder business.

“Yes, Eliza.”

“Why don’t we move in tonight? They wouldn’t expect us to have traveled as quickly as we have. And I’m healed.” The woman unstrapped her bandage deftly and placed the dressing near the inner crook of the tree. She bent her leg with minimal cringing.

Isaac shook his head.

Eliza growled.
“Why not?” she demanded.

Isaac’s eyes flashed in irritation. The nearby Terrence, put a hand on his mate, urging her to restrain herself from angering the Fated.

“Because—unless some glowing opportunity presents itself—dear Eliza, I wish them to behold what my conception can do. Valie is unlike anything anyone has ever seen. Let them stand in awe of her strength before we assume it for ourselves. The Council will only fear and despise what she is become. The others, however, are familiar with her. They alone may truly appreciate my achievement—at least until I make the others come to realization.”

Eliza continued to look dissatisfied, but she held her tongue. If the silent hulk, Terrence had not been there, she should have said more.

Eliza’s thoughts wandered back in time. It seemed her life had always been dominated by men in one fashion or another. She’d been an only child, the center of her parents’ lives—until their death. Both her mother and father succumbed to scarlet fever when she was seventeen. The change was dramatic. She was sent to live with her uncle, who, about six months into her stay, Eliza discovered to be a perverted man with a taste for younger women. Her aunt did little by way of protecting Eliza from the odious man; she took to her room, barely leaving to either eat or drink. By the time Eliza had arrived, her aunt was practically non-responsive to the world and Eliza’s arrival did nothing to change that fact.

It was under such negligence and torture that Eliza grew angry. Every day seemed to her a battle against the world. But she fought back. When Isaac bit Eliza, an action with quite unknown consequences at the time, the nineteen-year-old girl had lived with her relatives for almost two years. She’d gone home and nursed her wound silently, cursing her lot in life. Under the strong influence of depression, she considered suicide. Before she could perform the act, however, her uncle burst into the room. He beat her that night as punishment for the attempt. The torment unleashed all the hatred that had roiled inside of the young girl for the last two years. She underwent the Change and struck back against the man who had plagued her in the waking world as well as that of dreams.

Her uncle died that night.

Isaac arrived soon after to lead Eliza away, the blood still dripping from her hands. Her anger still fresh, she lashed out at the man she didn’t know. Calmly, he subdued her and tried to explain how her life would be altered and that he had chosen her to be of his pack. He had chosen her, he said, because she possessed strength thus far unequalled in the world.

The she-wolf looked over at Isaac. She owed him something, but she was no fool.  He had chosen her in order to use her. Her gift was her strength of will and her power.  She could outclass any male werewolf twice her size. And under Isaac’s tutelage, she had honed her Lycan abilities. There was nothing that she loved more than to fight.  But Isaac himself was older and a formidable opponent. He, too, began to control her outbursts and subdue her spirit. He didn’t allow her to follow her urge to kill at will—but only at his command. And she rebelled—until he found Terrence for her.

To Eliza, being around Terrence was like a breath of fresh air when fire was consuming all of her oxygen. At first, she ignored the addition, who’s brute strength was a decent match to her own agility and ferocity. But as time passed, she began to crave his company. She berated herself for becoming dependent on such a person, a person who tempered and replaced the rage that burned so passionately in every corner of her soul. Soon, though, she gave in. They completed each other.

And now Eliza thought over her leader’s promises concerning the power of
Abomination
. Yes, from now on it was going to be all about the half-blooded girl, his true daughter. She would no longer be Isaac’s dear Eliza, his right-hand woman, his second self. No, Valie would take her place. She would be his more powerful weapon.

New bitterness began to build in Eliza’s heart until Terrence stroked her arm caringly, sensing her change in mood. The she-wolf relaxed.

The red-headed she wolf wondered about this deadly game Isaac was playing with all of their lives—the turmoil and destruction
he
was causing. And for what?  What was wrong with the Lycanthrope race the way it was? Why should she care if it continued forever or not? Isaac wanted to be some sort of lord, but Eliza didn’t care who was on top of the heap. She could take care of herself and Terrence and that’s all she really cared about.

Raucous clamor was heard from the house.

“Sounds like the Change isn’t quite
agreeing
with her,” Eliza sneered.

Glass smashed.

When Valie ran out of the Heart house, those perched in the tree shifted to view the path from the doorway to the forest.  Isaac’s eyes glowed with excitement, anticipating the culmination of all his plans. Eighteen years he had waited. Now was his time.

“She’s fast,” Eliza whispered. The half-blood girl was outrunning the Vampyre easily.

“She’s remarkable, isn’t she?” Isaac replied with admiration. “Miss Heart can barely keep up.”

Soon the running pair disappeared in the adjacent side of the forest.

Isaac grinned wickedly in the night.

“Remember that opportunity I spoke of earlier, Eliza? Well, it looks like we’ll have our chance tonight after all.” His voice dropped down to a whisper as he spoke to himself: “Let the time of the Prophecy draw near.”

THE END

Valie was losing control. She knew that as she ran.

As her feet pounded the damp earth, Valie yearned for her lungs to burn with the cold air of the coming dawn. She longed for the pumping of her heart to fill her ears. To sweat; she never would have thought it possible, but she wanted to sweat. However, nothing came of her desires; she was no longer human.

She sprinted through the woods without difficulty, bounding across the terrain as if it was a level track. She did not tire. She flew, rather than ran, and felt invigorated by the exertion. The only deterrent to her efforts was the throbbing pain in her right arm. As she ran, she wondered when such pain would cease.

Her eyes perceived the strangely illumined surrounds as though it were a clouded day instead of a blackened night. She could see every detail of the trees, the rocks, the deep holes housing her fellow nighttime animals, all as she rushed passed. Her follower she perceived around the second mile of her sprint.

The pursuer was far behind and losing ground. Valie doubted any living being, Occult or otherwise, could outrun her. Maxine was no exception.

To Valie’s surprise a feeling of wicked amusement invaded her sensations as she perceived the Vampyre woman’s metallic scent and listened to her would-be silent footfalls. The beast hungered for confrontation.

The girl ran faster.

Upon reaching the main road, being all too familiar with what lay to the east, Valie ran west. The cars speeding down the road from either direction were as yellow and red blurs and the brilliance of the lights pained Valie’s new sight; she took to the safety of the woods’ shadow. Soon, however, a different congregation of lights appeared.

A lumber yard lay just inside the shelter of the forest, all closed down for the night except for the floodlights overhead. The lights made bright light play with shadows on the tarps covering the two dozen semi-truck-sized piles of measured wood. A massive pile of unused logs lay uncovered to one side. Pieces of heavy machinery lay to their opposite, sheltered under a metal roof. As the raindrops began to fall, the noise of their landing echoed off of the tin. The noise began to quicken. Valie’s clothes began to soak.