The Werewolf Whisperer (16 page)

“Let’s get out of here, Tommy.” I transition into the great white eagle and grabbed Tommy with my talons and headed down the mountain with Tommy in claw. I didn’t see Goliath as we exited.  It was probably better that way.

As I flew down to my house, I dropped Tommy on my front lawn and landed beside him—transitioning back to a Mani.  The morning air had dried Tommy off, but he still stunk of sweat.

“Well, Tommy. How do you feel?”  Tommy looked at me and didn’t say anything. “Are you answering me in your mind?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Tommy laughed.

“I can’t hear you anymore,” I said. “Can you hear my thoughts?”

Tommy focused on me. “No,” Tommy said.

“The sun is out and my skin is beginning to sting.”  I opened the door and Tommy and I entered the house. Wyatt and Hector were asleep on the living room floor.

We walked to the back of the house. Yari was sleeping in Tommy’s room, and Lena was asleep in mine. “What a couple of Goldilocks!” Tommy said, laughing.

I smiled. “Let’s go talk in the kitchen.” We walked to the kitchen and sat at the table.

“You hungry,” I asked

“I’m starving.”

“I’ll make us a couple of omelets.” I opened the refrigerator pulled out a carton of eggs, milk, cheese, and some lunch meat. I opened the bottom cabinets below the stove and took out a skillet. “You want three of four eggs?”

“I’m starving. Give me five.”

“You want lunch meat?”

“What kind?”

“Turkey.”

“Sure.”

I proceeded to crack the eggs open and make us both a couple of omelets. Tommy put out a couple of plates and poured us some orange juice; it felt like old times.

“I miss this,” I said as I put the hot plates on the table.

“We sure had our times, didn’t we?”  Tommy dug into his omelet. “Damn, Josiah, this tastes great.” I took a bite into mine. It was pretty damn good. One thing I could do was make a mean omelet.  Mastering my Mani abilities was another story.

“So,” I said, “it’s obvious we connected on a far greater level than either of us expected.”

“It appears to be that way,” Tommy continued to eat his omelet.

“What I need to figure out is why the Triat felt it was important for me to train you further as a Carni, while I remain stagnate in my abilities.”

“Maybe by helping me, somehow you grew yourself. Maybe the Triat wanted to see you do an unselfish act.”

“Maybe, I hadn’t thought about that.” I continued to eat my omelet.  I took a drink of my orange juice. “I do, however believe the Triat wants me to go away and to be trained also.”

“Trained? Where? By whom?”

“You’re going to laugh.”

“I doubt that Josiah, we have experienced too much crazy shit for any of this to be too damn funny.”

“Okay,” I said. “The Triat wants me to go to Dracula’s Castle and get trained by a blue gnome.”

Tommy stared at me blankly, then cracked a smile and laughed out loud. “Were you sure it was a vision, or did you smoke some herb before going to bed?

“No it was definitely a vision.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“I had a couple visions where Dracula’s castle and the little blue gnome were in both of them.”

“Gnome?” Tommy asked. “Liked the Travelocity guy?”

“Sort of. He looks as if the Travelocity guy and Smurfette had a kid.”

“And this guy is supposed to train you like some Yoda?”

“I don’t know exactly. I don’t know if he is going to do the training or I’m supposed to just meet him there to be trained by someone else.  I know it’s what I’m supposed to do.”

“Why?”

“It is why I trained you. I was told by the blue gnome to do so, and looked what happened. You now have cognitive thought as a werewolf.”

Tommy nodded his head. “So when do you plan to go?”

“Very soon.”

“Wow, now Dracula is mixed up in this mess,” Tommy laughed. “This just gets better and better.”

Yari came into the kitchen. “Why are you guys here? I thought we were coming to you at the cabin.” She looked pretty hot wearing red plaid pajamas.

“We had a little bit of trouble,” Tommy said.

Yari sat down at the table. “So which of you is cooking?”

“Josiah made his famous lunch meat omelet. It’s pretty ghetto, but it’s damn good.”

Yari smiled. “I like ghetto.”

“You can’t eat an omelet can you?” I asked.

“Maybe, if I dipped it in blood.” Yari laughed.

“Sounds delicious,” I said.

“So, what kind of trouble did you get into?”

“Tommy and I made ton of progress in our training exercises. We were able to do things neither of us anticipated.”

“Like....? Yari asked.

“When I’m the grey wolf, Josiah and I are able to communicate through our thoughts.”

“Bullshit!” Yari scowled.

“We’re not kidding.” Tommy looked to me for confirmation.

Yari looked over to me. “He’s telling the truth.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“Well, that’s where the trouble comes in. We were attacked by a pack of werewolves,” I said.

Yari looked at both of us. “Seriously?  That was the trouble you were talking about?”

“It wasn’t just any pack of wolves,” I said “It was Tommy’s old gang: Goliath and his minions.”

“You were able to kill Goliath?” Yari asked

“Actually, no. I did cripple him pretty good with a motorcycle.  The sun started coming out, and Tommy and I fled down the mountain.”

“Did you kill any of them?” Yari said worried.

“We both did,” I said. “We had to while defending ourselves.”

“How many did you kill?” Yari asked with her voice rising.

“Two,” I said.

“Two each?”

“No, one a piece,” I said. “Why is it a big deal?”

“You killed two Carni and you don’t think it’s a big deal? This isn’t the middle ages. You can’t just kill whoever you want.”

“Look, neither one of us killed for sport.”  I said. “We were defending ourselves. They came after us.”

Tommy had remained quiet as I defended our brawl to Yari. Yari looked over to Tommy. “If you had any chance of returning to your people; it’s completely over now.”

“Who said I wanted to? They left me for dead.”

“But you’re not a Mani, Tommy. I am not even sure if Mani and Carni can coexist inside the will of the Triat.”

“Look, Yari,” Tommy said. “I know you have been around since George Washington. But none of us knows what any of this means. Josiah had a vision that told him to work with me. That’s all we know. This might not be about Carni vs. Mani. It might be as simple as good vs evil.”

Yari looked at both of us. It was obvious that she cared deeply for both us. “Nonetheless, we all need to get the hell out of here. It’s bad enough we have Krull after us, now we have the Carni nation.”

“We did what we had to do,” Tommy said indignantly.

“I know boys, you’re the good guys. I know that much for sure.  Regardless, we all need to get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Great” I said. “More running. For being the supposed chosen few, we sure do a lot of running and hiding.”

“Get everybody up, Josiah,” Yari said. “We all need to transition and head to Los Angeles.”

“Why Los Angeles?” I asked.

“I have a place there. I had it since 1940’s.”

“Of course you do,” I said sarcastically.

I got Hector and Wyatt up and then walked down the hallway to my room. Lena was still asleep in my bed. I walked into my bedroom and sat in my computer chair next to my desk. I closed my eyes and just took a moment for myself. I haven’t had too many of these moments in the last few days.              

Lena lied in my bed peacefully and had no idea what Tommy and I had just been through last night. As far as I was concerned, I wanted to keep her as far away as possible from that world. I knew I couldn’t. In the end, she is in this as deep as I am. She was willing to do whatever it took to help the cause.
Will I be able to protect her? Or is both our fate the one of martyrs?
I didn’t know. All I knew was that I was staring at the most beautiful woman I had ever seen lying in my bed like a princess from a fairytale.  I just wasn’t sure if this fairytale had a happy ending. All I know is I will die trying.  I wasn’t sure if I was ready to fight for the Mani people as a whole, but I was certain I was ready to lay my life down for her.

I calmly walked over to her. “Lena, sweetie,” I whispered. “We need to leave.”

Lena opened her eyes. “I’m nobody’s sweetie,” she said with a smile.

“You know what I mean.”

She sat up and stretched. “Are you okay, Josiah?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, but some crap went down at the cabin.”

“What happened?”

“Some of Tommy’s old werewolf buddies from the other night came looking for me. Or maybe, they came looking for him?  Maybe, they were following a smell?  We weren’t quite sure. We ended up killing or injuring all of them.

“Are the two of you okay?”

“We’re both fine. We were able to isolate them.  They didn’t have a chance.”

Lena brushed back my hair.  “You’re a tough son-of-a-bitch aren’t you?” She looked at me in a way she never had before.  She had looked at me lovingly before, but this was different.  She seemed to be looking at me with a different kind of energy.  I could feel her sexual attraction towards me.  It was the first time I had ever felt that coming from her
.  I just had my first erection as a Mani.

This wasn’t the time or place, so I decided to talk about I came to her room to talk to her about. “Yari thinks we just started an all out Carni/Mani war. She thinks all of us need to leave.”

“Where are we going to go?”

“Some place in Los Angeles. Yari apparently has a place.”

“In Los Angeles?” Lena asked, surprised.

“She’s a woman with many secrets.”

“Do you trust her?”

That was a weird question for Lena to ask.  Especially, since she had been living with her the last 72 hours.

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

Lena looked at me for a moment and didn’t say anything.”

“Is there something I need to know?  Why wouldn’t I trust her? She saved Tommy and mine’s life.”

Lena nodded. “You’re right,” she said.

“Do you know something?” I asked.

Lena shook her head.

“We can’t afford to second guess each other right now. The six of us is all we have.”

“You’re right, Josiah.” Lena smiled.

I took her hand. “When all of this is over, you and I are going to be alright. I know it in my heart.” I leaned in and hugged her.  I closed my eyes and just took her in.

After a moment Lena asked, “Are we leaving right now?”

“It looks that way.”

“It’s day time. We are going to have transition if we are going to Los Angeles.”

“I know. Tommy is going to drive separately. Put your things in my truck and Tommy will take them down.”

“Alright, I’m going to take a shower.”

“Okay.” I got up and headed back to the kitchen. Tommy, Yari, Hector and Wyatt were all in the kitchen talking.

“Lena is taking a shower,” I said to the group.

“And you didn’t join her?” Yari said with a smirk.               “No, I didn’t.”  I replied with as little sense of humor I had ever displayed in my life.  “When she’s finished, we all can leave.”

“I’ll bring the truck up later today,” Tommy said as he got up and went into the living room.

“Why later?” I asked.

“Cause I want to sleep.” Tommy said lying on the couch and closing his eyes.

“You can sleep at Yari’s place.”

“Are you really going to make a big deal about this, Josiah?”

“I just want everyone to be safe.”

“I am a big boy, Josiah. I am going to be alright.”

“Fine, Tom. Do it your way.” It must had been bugging Tommy to death that I was calling the shots. I’ll let him have this one.

I packed a suitcase and put it in my truck. Tommy got the directions from Yari. Soon after, the five Mani all transitioned into our bird forms and headed to Los Angeles.  We flew as a group. I flew higher than the rest to be less visible. I didn’t feel like making the morning news. We made our way over Orange County and I could see Angel stadium and Disneyland.

I looked down below me and Yari and Lena were flying next to one another. Yari’s feathers were a dark red with streaks of orange—the color of fire. While Lena’s coat looked like the rocks from Sedona, Arizona; a pretty reddish-orange color that had streaks of black in it.

As we passed over Orange County, we made our way to Los Angeles. Yari flew ahead of us and squawked loudly—her famous squawk. I looked down and saw the Los Angeles skyline.  It wasn’t like New York City’s, but it wasn’t too shabby. 

I was extremely cautious now that we were in the big city, not to be seen from the ground. Yari circled over us and motioned with her wings for us to fly down and land by the giant Hollywood sign. The five of us glided passed Griffith Park and landed right in front of the giant letters. None of us transitioned because the sun would fry us like bacon. She apparently needed to rest. She squawked and aimed her beak north.

Yari flew back up and we followed her making our way towards West Hollywood. Yari squawked a final time and flew down for us to follow her into a nice gated town house community. Yari scanned the ground to make sure no Tandra were outside. When the coast was clear we all headed down with her and landed.

Yari quickly transitioned to her Mani form and turned over a doormat in front of white and brown home. She grabbed a key that was under the mat and quickly opened her door—to not burn from the sunlight. We all went in the front door and transitioned alongside her.

“It’s just three rooms,” Yari said. “So we will have to double up.”
              “Hector and I don’t need a room. We barely sleep,” Wyatt said. “The living room will be fine for us.”

“I can barely keep my eyes open,” I commented. “I’m going to crash in the room with the biggest bed.”

“That would be mine,” Yari said. “It’s a California king.”