H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (35 page)

I ended up at the all night 7-Eleven store,
two miles up. I decided to go in and grab some hot dogs for Tommy
and me. I went to the back where they kept basic items in the
freezer. I grabbed a pack of dogs and a pack of buns from the
shelf. I went to the condiment aisle and got some Gulden’s mustard.
Neither Tommy nor I liked ketchup.

I walked up to the front counter to pay and
scanned the magazines while I waited for the guy in front to me to
pick out some lottery tickets. I looked at the tabloid magazines
and newspapers. One cover read, “Real Vampires Wreak Havoc on
Dracula’s Castle.” I laughed. Real vampires, my ass! I’d show you a
fucking real life vampire! There was a picture of Dracula’s Castle
on the cover of the magazine. As I stared at the cover, I dropped
the hot dogs, buns and mustard.

There it was: a white castle with exactly
the same building structure as the one in my vision, complete with
hill and distinct-colored brush. Holy shit! It was the castle to a
“T.” Was I supposed to go to Dracula’s castle? Was that little blue
man supposed to train me at Dracula’s castle? Where the hell was
Dracula’s castle located? I skimmed the article. Transylvania,
Romania. Are you fucking kidding me? Could this get any
weirder?

* * *

I got back and put the hot dogs and buns in
the refrigerator and went upstairs to check on Tommy. When I got to
his room, something was horribly wrong; he wasn’t there. My heart
fell to the floor. Tommy was out of his cage! I totally forgot that
he was still a werewolf. A werewolf that was capable of killing
anything or anyone in a blink of an eye.

What was I thinking? How could I be so
careless? I had let Tommy out and whatever happened would be my
fault. I went through the cabin looking for him. I yelled out his
name. Nothing. I went outside and looked in every direction.
Nothing. I decided to head up toward the woods, I don’t know why
that made the most sense, but it did.

I yelled out his name as I hurried deeper
into the woods. I heard rustling in the bushes ahead of me and then
I heard a familiar growl.

“Tommy!” I yelled. “Stop whatever you’re
doing! STOP!” I was praying there wasn’t something awful behind
that bush. I ran around the bush to see the potential massacre.
There he was, Tommy—by himself. And he had obviously relieved
himself. He looked at me as if to say, ‘Really dude?’

“Let’s get back, Tommy.” I said in a
command. As we walked back, I said to him repeatedly, “I didn’t
know, bro.”

When we got back to the house, it was 4:30
a.m. The sun was going to be up in two hours and I would have to
wait a whole month for another full moon. So, Tommy and I needed to
get to work. If my vision was right—or if I interpreted it
correctly, Tommy should be able to transition the way Mani
could.

Right now, there was an immense amount of
trust between us. He went outside and didn’t have the need to kill.
As far as I could tell—he didn’t even harm a small animal, not even
an insect. I truly believed in my heart of hearts that he had been
tamed to a certain extent.

I looked at Tommy. How was I going to take
this up to the next level? How was I going to get Tommy to a place
where he can transition the way a Mani can? Everything up to this
point had just come to me. Almost as if the Triat was speaking
through me. Now, I felt like I was dangling. I hadn’t a clue.

I sat on the couch and just closed my eyes.
Tommy jumped on the couch and lay next to me with his giant
werewolf body. The only thing that made any sense to me was to talk
to him as Tommy my friend—not Tommy the werewolf.

“So, what now?” I asked him. Tommy looked up
at me and seemed desperate for me to have some answers as if to
say, ‘You don’t know? We have accomplished all of this, and now
you’re stumped?’

“I know, Tommy. I am stumped,” I said.

I looked at this werewolf. He was quite the
creature. If I didn’t know it was Tommy, I’d be scared to death.
This killing machine looked ready to tear anything from limb to
limb. Are we supposed to go out and fight? Or are we supposed to
bond in another way? I had no idea. Well, that question would be
answered soon enough.

Tommy’s ears pricked up and he ran to the
door. Suddenly, I heard howls, but they were not coming from Tommy.
I ran to the windows and saw something awful outside. As the full
moonlight landed on the earth I saw what it was. It was five
werewolves as big or bigger than Tommy creeping up to the cabin and
I could see a sixth one in the distance. One of the werewolves was
almost twice as big as the others. These must be the Carni from the
other night. And the gigantic black one must be Goliath. He was
already scary-as-hell-looking as a Carni, but as a werewolf, he
looked like something out of the book of Revelations.

I looked at Tommy, “What should we do?” I
whispered.

“I don’t know,” Tommy said back.

At first, I didn’t realize what had just
happened. Then it became very clear to me. I’d just heard Tommy’s
voice, or did I imagine that?

“You didn’t imagine anything, Josiah,” Tommy
said to me. He was staring at me. His mouth wasn’t moving. I could
hear his thoughts.

“We can read each other’s minds?” I asked
Tommy in my head.

“You always had the ability to read my mind,
but now I can read yours,” Tommy said through his thoughts.

“This is fucking huge,” I whispered out
loud. “But we really need to talk about this later.”

“Josiah, talk to me in your head. They will
hear you. Werewolves have keen hearing.”

“How do they know we’re here?” I thought to
Tommy.

“This place wasn’t exactly a secret,” Tommy
replied, looking at me.

“We have two choices. We can run, or we can
fight.”

“I choose fight.” Tommy said. He wanted
payback. Who could blame him?

“We are horribly outnumbered,” I said, still
in my head. “If we choose to fight, we’ll need to isolate
them.”

“We cannot allow them to attack us a pack.”
Tommy agreed. We were on the same page. This wasn’t going to be a
Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid going out in a blaze of glory.
We needed to be smart about this.

“We need to split up,” I said. I figured
Tommy and I could use our thoughts as walkie-talkies.

I peeked out the window. The werewolves were
making their move on the house. “I’m going to transition to the
eagle and fly out back. You go upstairs and climb out the window
and get on the roof.”

“Josiah, whatever happens. Please don’t
leave me here.”

“Tommy, there would be no way I would. I’ll
die here tonight if I have to.”

Tommy nodded and headed quickly
upstairs.

I ran out the back and transitioned into the
eagle as I hit the back porch. I flew up by gliding my wings just
high enough that the wolves couldn’t see me. I circled and looked
down. I saw Tommy climb out his bedroom window and leap in one
quick motion to the roof by bouncing from the tree at the side of
the house to the roof—like a ninja.

“This is a good plan,” I thought.

“I doubt all of them will come here at
once,” Tommy thought back.

“Good, we can still hear each other. I see a
wolf by himself about three houses down, he must have pulled back
to be some kind of look out. I’m going to go down to him.”

“Be careful,” Tommy said in his head. “I’m
going to see how I measure up to one of the assholes at full
werewolf.”

I spread my wings and felt the wind
underneath me. Damn, it felt awesome to be an eagle. I sped down in
a quick motion beak first and I aimed my mouth directly into the
giant dog’s back. I nailed him like a linebacker blitzing a
quarterback. The beast flew forward. The wolf was black and white
in appearance and I was having trouble seeing him in the dark. I
needed to remain an eagle because my eagle eyesight was off the
charts. So, this fight was going to be ‘eagle vs. wolf.’

The wolf turned around and I flew up about
20 feet over his head. I once again sliced down and pierced him
hard, this time in his left front leg tearing into his flesh down
to bone. He fell over in pain, crying and howling like a puppy that
got spanked for peeing on the carpet. The wolf hobbled into the
middle of the street when a giant truck came flying down the
street. My heart sank as the truck slammed into the black and white
wolf. As this happened, I flew up again and watched the wolf lie in
the street. I didn’t like killing anything, but now I had no
choice. It was kill or be killed.

Nonetheless, I flew down to try to help it.
I was too late. The wolf had vanished. Dammit, I killed him. The
truck driver stopped his semi and stepped out to see what he had
hit. He seemed bewildered when he saw there was nothing there. The
werewolf disappeared just as Atticai had months earlier.

I flew up and I saw Tommy on the roof. There
was a white wolf crawling up the side of the house, ready to leap
from the drainage pipe. As far as I could tell it was just one.
Tommy was highly aware of the beast as the white wolf slipped up
the side of the house and made its way to the top of the roof.
Tommy didn’t let him get situated, he slammed into the wolf with a
fierce throttle and the white wolf did a backwards somersault,
falling off the roof. The wolf landed on its back on the grass
below. I flew down and grabbed the injured wolf with my talons. I
flew away as fast as I could. I thought about dropping him in
Arrowhead Lake, but watching the last one die made me nauseous. I
dropped the wolf into some brush. Maybe the brush broke his fall,
maybe it didn’t. At least this way I was giving him a fighting
chance.

Back to the house. The wolves now were down
to four. I glided up to the roof where Tommy was. I landed next to
him, “Good job, Tommy!” I thought.

Tommy panted proudly, “Where’s Goliath?” he
said in his head.

“I don’t know.” Suddenly, I saw two more
wolves going up the side of the house.

“Tommy! Watch out!” I yelled out loud.

Tommy saw that there were two of them. “I
might need your help.”

“I’m already on it.” They were both brown,
so I could see them reasonably well. I transitioned back to my Mani
form to be more agile. Both wolves jumped on the roof at the same
time. I flew up in the air as a Mani to have elevation on them.
Tommy held his ground in the center of the roof.

The first brown wolf leaped on top of him,
with the other not too far behind. Not on my watch. I flew down and
kicked the second wolf right in the face before he could land on
Tommy. I fell backwards on contact and slipped on the roof.

The wolf, dazed, turned and leaped on me. It
was trying to bite me. This creature was ferociously strong, but I
was stronger. I reversed the wolf MMA style and was on top of
him—riding him like fucking bull. I slammed my elbow into the back
of the wolf’s neck. It reached back to claw me from behind. I
grabbed the wolf by its neck and had an amazing hold—choking him
out. I knew I could have killed the wolf with my bare hands, but
didn’t want to see him die. I threw him off the roof and didn’t
bother to look down. The creature sealed his fate coming here. The
Triat would allow me to defend myself when I was clearly
outnumbered.

I looked over and saw the fourth wolf make
his way to the roof. Still no Goliath; that big ape probably
couldn’t climb up the side of the roof. The fourth werewolf was the
smallest of the bunch and was completely white. Child’s play.
Still, Tommy was outnumbered 2-1. I transitioned back to the eagle
in midair. I darted down again with more force and speed than I
ever had before. I was really feeling it. Tommy was doing a great
job of fighting the other brown wolf one-on-one. So my only goal
was to spear this white wolf in his back. My beak was more powerful
than a sword at this speed. As I flew down, the wolf leaped out of
the way, I hit the roof like a pile of bricks and slid as I hit the
shingles falling off the roof landing right in front of Goliath.
Holy shit! He was huge!

I quickly transitioned back to a Mani and
Goliath seemed to like that. His eyes sparkled like I was a steak.
I wasn’t as hurt as I thought I’d be falling twenty-five feet.
Eagles were pretty tough I guess, but I needn’t have worried about
that at the moment because I was now a Mani. This was definitely
your classic David vs. Goliath matchup. I was tiny compared to the
mammoth werewolf. I looked over and saw a motorcycle parked next
door. I needed to use everything I had and this was as good of time
as any to do try to do that moving shit with my mind business. I
looked at the motorcycle, connected with it, and with a quick
glance I shot the motorcycle across the grass and rammed right into
Goliath’s back. Woo Hoo! I controlled it! Goliath yelped. The
motorcycle did some major damage. Goliath wasn’t moving at all but
he was definitely still alive. I left him there yelping and made my
way back up to the roof to help Tommy. Thank God Tommy was holding
his own, battling the two werewolves.

“It’s about time you showed up,” Tommy said,
shooting a look in my direction.

I yelled out loud, “Sorry, I was just
throwing an 800-pound motorcycle at Goliath with my mind.”

“Impressive,” Tommy then smacked the white
wolf with his left claw. “Take the one on the right, I got this
little shit.”

“Always leave me with the hard work,” I said
charging the wolf on the right. As I ran forward, the wolf also
charged into me. It was going to be ‘Mani versus werewolf’ in an
old school football collision. We collided into each other like a
car crash. I bit down with my razor-sharp incisors and chomped him
in the neck on contact. He never saw it coming. And with my left
arm, I uppercut the wolf in the chin. The first brown wolf stumbled
backwards, nearly falling off the roof, but stopping just short of
doing so. He turned around and I greeted him with a roundhouse
kick. The wolf fell to the ground below. I turned my head to not
watch him die. I turned my head back to Tommy where he was fighting
his wolf that was like something reminiscent of the Lion King.