Embers (The Wings of War Book 1) (19 page)

We’d worked hard to make the compound comfortable and functional.  The bonded pairs had their own houses, and the other houses were shared by small groups.

I was almost to the lodge when I slowed my pace. On the right was the only building in the enclosure without a porch.  It was small and its windows were located high on the walls.  You couldn’t look in or out.  The building was empty now, but usually housed the donors.  Charity had been one of them.
 
I paused, remembering the scene several months earlier when she’d died. 

Most of the humans were drained of their souls on arrival.  The cause of argument recently involved the matter of the draining.  We had always kept the humans in a state of suspended animation, so there was no pain or fear. 

The searchers were careful to pick the type of humans that wouldn’t be missed from society.  They searched hundreds of miles in all directions for their victims. When they found a suitable candidate, usually a criminal type or a drifter, they’d persuade them to get into the van.  Once inside, they’d use their powers to keep the humans unconscious while they brought them back to the compound.    

We were doing the human communities a service by weeding out their societal weakness.  At least that’s what Garrett preached to us.  I always figured it was an attempt to justify our actions, make us feel a little less evil.   

Occasionally, instead of draining a new-comer’s soul, they were selected to be a donor.  The donors would stay in the small building so that we could suck their souls dry slowly, over time.  The donors died, the same as everyone else, it just took a little longer. 

Charity’s name had been her bad luck.  Garrett picked her for the irony of it, but no one had expected Patrick to become infatuated with the young woman.  He would take her out of her cell for short walks around the compound while the others mocked him.  When Charity’s body started to become an empty package, Patrick became distraught. 

Out of the blue, Garrett announced that he sensed that the woman might be changeable.  I’d doubted it from the beginning.  If she’d had the right genetic makeup, Garrett would have known immediately when she was taken off the van. The same way he had known about me, and the others he’d awakened. 

I’d worried that Garrett was up to something and told Patrick so, but he was so intent on having the woman with him as our own kind that he trusted Garrett—big mistake. 

Garrett instructed Patrick on how to tug at her soul in an attempt to waken it to our level.  I witnessed the ordeal and I can attest first-hand how gentle the burly man was with the human, but it didn’t matter.  When he initiated the pull, Charity’s soul broke free instantly.  Patrick couldn’t control his hunger.  He ate her soul, and has lived with the agony of it ever since. 

With more determination and a longer stride, I closed the distance to the lodge, only slowing down once I was in the dimly lit interior of the building.  The cooler air dried the sweat from my skin and I made my way warily past the couches and dining tables. 

The scent of tomatoes cooking reached my nostrils before I passed the open doorway to the kitchen.  Pricilla was hovering over a steaming pot, but she happened to look up when I passed by.  She waved and I lifted my own hand with less enthusiasm.

I strode right into the library without knocking.   There wasn’t much time before the others returned.  I needed to have this conversation with Garrett alone.

He was sitting at a small reading table surrounded by several piles of books. He glanced up when I entered the room.  After closing the book he held, he removed his glasses and proceeded to rub his eyes vigorously. 

I waited for him to look back up and when he did, he smiled complacently.

“We need to talk about the hunting.  It shouldn’t go on.  If they keep doing this, they’ll lose control.”  Even though my heart pounded in my chest, I thought my voice sounded steady. 

“I’ve been waiting for you to come to me.  They sent
you
because they know I have a soft spot for my first changeling. 

“You remember how we traveled from place to place, over time, searching for others like us.  Eventually, I learned I could sense our kind from across great distances, and our numbers grew until we had a proper community.”

He flashed a smile, brushing the thick brown hair from his forehead.  He was stranded in a thirty-five year old body.  The small creases at the corner of his eyes made him look wizened compared to the others.

“When I brought our family here and decided to settle permanently, I knew what we were doing was going to be challenging, but we made it work for over fifty years. Now there is turmoil…and you are willing to turn against me—the one who changed you?” he grimaced, as if he’d bitten into a sour grape.

“I’m not turning against you.  I don’t understand why you’re letting them go against all that you preached to us for so many years.  If we are the enlightened ones as you’ve said, would we be torturing the humans?  I don’t think so.” 

“You seem to have misunderstood me, Sawyer,” he said in a low voice.  “Because we are the enlightened ones, we can do whatever we want.  Our numbers have grown to the point that we can behave true to our nature.  We don’t need to hide away in the woods as thieves in the night any longer.  Our kind has prospered, not just here on this mountain, but around the world.  It seems we have come into a time where violence and murder is a common thing.  Humans don’t care about what happens to other humans that they feel are beneath them.”

“What are you saying?  That you plan to go out and begin stalking humans in the streets as it was done hundreds of years ago?” 

“In time, yes, the world is changing and we’ll reap the rewards.  The era of the humans is nearing its end.  But for now, we need to prepare, by learning the old ways.”

Garrett studied my face intently, waiting for my reply. 

What he was saying was
insane.
 
Did he believe himself to be a prophet predicting a cataclysmic event that would alter the known world?  The thought of hunting humans in the open was more than I could imagine. 

The girl’s face flickered in my mind and an unreasonable protectiveness washed over me. 

I realized that I couldn’t change Garrett’s mind.  I needed time to think and talk to those who felt the way I did.  It would be dangerous for us to openly defy Garrett and the others.  They had the numbers.  Garrett would command his followers to kill anyone who didn’t go along with his mad ideas of dominating the world. 

He must have been planning this for a long time.   I had no choice except to go along with it for now.  Just play the game a little while longer and wait for the right opportunity to act.  I took a calming breath and pushed aside the feeling of apprehension that chilled every inch of my body.

“Thank you for explaining that to me.  I knew there must be more to it than just entertainment. If you feel strongly that this is what the world is coming to then I won’t stand in your way,” I said.

“I’m glad you understand.  I would like nothing more than for you to be by my side when our kind rises.”  Garrett smiled a wicked grin that raised goose bumps on my arms.  I could only imagine what the look would do to mere humans. 

The scraping of the main door against the hard wood floor streamed to my sensitive ears.  Garrett rose from his chair and gave me a nod.  I walked out of the library with him, but a step behind, silently preparing for the game.

When we entered the main room, I quickly assessed that there were nine others sitting or standing around the couches.  They were all winded and sweating, obviously fresh from a hard workout in the forest.  I caught Horas’ gaze and he winked at me before he put his arm around Gabrielle.  He’d been spending a lot of time lately with the curvy Spanish beauty. 

Next to them on the couch sat Sarah and Mary.  Mary’s auburn hair clashed with Sarah’s wispy blonde strands.  Charles stood behind Mary with the usual smirk on his face.  The obnoxious twist to his lips was a permanent fixture for him.  He stared at me looking thoroughly amused. The man considered himself to be second in command to Garrett, but he always appeared insecure of the position around me.  As if I’d actually want the job. 

On the other couch was the handsome and totally full of himself Peter and the warrior Renna.  Renna didn’t speak any English, but she understood it just fine.  Sometimes, she would mutter her native tongue to herself, but other than that, she’d been silent since we ran across her in Africa at the turn of the twentieth century.  

The last two in the room were Donnelly and Kimberly.  I glanced at them and then quickly away.  Donnelly was huge and built the same as a truck.  He wasn’t the smartest one in the family, but he could fight.  Garrett had discovered him in a boxing ring in Chicago in the forties.  Donnelly was dangerous, but the creature that worried me the most, was the golden goddess sitting next to him. 

Kimberly was by far the most alluring of all the females in the room.  She’d worked her charms on me many times since the nineteen sixties when she’d joined the family, but beneath the violet eyes and ivory skin was pure evil.   I couldn’t help shivering when I remembered her blood smeared face stretched back in a snarl.  She had attacked the local men as if she were a wild animal, tearing into their flesh with the same zeal that the lion had.  

I never had the desire to bond to her even though she’d fixated on me, but after the attack on the locals, I not only despised the sight of her, I was also afraid.  Never in all my years had I seen others of my kind act with such merciless violence while feeding.  Soul taking didn’t involve the drinking of blood or eating of flesh.  It was completely unnecessary and beyond barbaric. 

When I had realized that there was nothing I could do to stop the blood frenzy, I ran deep into the forest, leaving the tearing noises and the smell of fresh blood far behind me.  I’d emptied my stomach on the ground several times as I made my way higher and higher up the mountainside, until I reached the stone ledge. 

The place provided a view of dozens of tree covered hills stretching out for miles below it.  The dark greens of the pines and the softer shades of the hardwoods intermingled with the browns and grays of rock formations to show the wilderness in all its glory.  The lookout had always been an escape of peace and relaxation for me in the past, but on that day, it was where I had reached into my own soul.  I had remained on the ledge for several days while the touch of madness caressed me. 

Lutz had been the one who’d found me and brought me back to the compound.  As his thick arms had encircled me, I’d regretted not having made the jump already.  The distance to the gorge below was enough that even I wouldn’t have survived the fall.  My head would have been smashed to pieces and that’s what was needed to destroy a monster like me.  I was within minutes of ending the nightmare I’d been living since the day that Garrett had found me on the edge of the battlefield.   So close to finally being free from the constant cravings for human souls and the guilty, sleepless nights of knowing that others died so that I could continue living. 

The only thing that kept me on the rock during those torturous days was the fear of the unknown.  What would be waiting for me?  I was raised in the church and I knew the place that God reserved for murderers.  The fear of the reckoning is what saved me. 

Lutz had carried me through the storm while the rain drops pelted my skin and the wind pounded my face.  While I’d been held snuggly in the bear’s arms, my mind began to clear.  The haziness of self-hatred and despair had been washed away from my spirit.  When I’d opened my eyes, I saw a streak of lightening zigzagging through the sky, followed by the booming thunder that shook the trees around us. 

That’s the moment when I vowed that I would never witness such horrible deeds ever again.   I would do whatever I could to prevent the slaughter from happening—even if it killed me.   

The memory strengthened my will to succeed.  I blinked and pulled myself together.  I would have to be a convincing actor to fool the others. 

Lutz and Cray were sitting at the table while Pricilla spooned helpings onto their plates.  The two Growlers were a mess.  Their hair was disheveled and their clothes torn.  I could smell the animals from where I stood.  Cray was excited about the hunt, the musky oils on his skin stronger than ever.  The scent rising from Lutz was from the sweat of his exhausted body.  He wasn’t interested in hunting the humans, but he had no choice in the matter.  Garrett would demand it. 

The door slid open a fraction and Ivan slid through it, moving silently with downcast eyes to the table where Lutz and Cray sat.  When he took the seat beside Lutz, the big bear man swatted him on the head playfully as if he was batting a bear cub around.  Ivan took the rough treatment with a slight smile, knowing full well that the bear liked him.  When Pricilla handed him a plate, he began shoveling the food into his mouth.  He must be getting ready for a growth spurt judging by the way he ate.  I went to join him and the other Growlers. 

I listened to everyone as they talked in hushed tones about the upcoming hunt, planning their ambushes and strategies.  I took a plate from Pricilla who seemed pleased that I was eating her food.  Sometimes the others gave her a hard time about her cooking.  The animals sitting next to me would eat just about anything.  Their enormous appetites didn’t please her the way it did when one of us enjoyed her preparations.