The Waking (The Upturned Hourglass) (25 page)

Jack strode into the living room where he found Valie standing, waiting. Her hair was pulled back into a tight knot, her feeble attempt at feeling cleaner, Jack supposed.

“So we’re in Seattle?” she demanded from across the room.  Her voice was humorless, angry.

“Yes.”

Valie took a deep breath, steadying herself. After holding the girl half of the night, Jack felt a keen sense of detachment from where he stood across the room. He took a cautious step toward her, trying to close the gap between them.

“Wouldn’t you like to sit down?” he offered stupidly. He thought he would explain it all very matter-of-factly, but now he stood mute before her. He didn’t know what to say to this girl, this girl that he had stolen away and refused to give back. He kept telling himself the measures he had taken were just to save her life, but somehow he felt self-centered—not that he would admit it.

“I think I’ve done enough sitting. I’ll stand.” Valie crossed her arms defensively as if she could not be moved. This daughter of Isaac’s knew absolutely nothing—yet her strength was evident, if only in an iron will strengthened in adversity.

“Alright,” Jack replied, his voice soft, but a little patronizing. “What would you like, then?”

Standing as still as a statue, Valie stared at the werewolf watchfully. Her amber eyes were unnaturally bright and golden in the light of the setting sun. With her auburn hair pulled back off of her face, she looked heavenly--an angel made of glass and gold, an angel filled with righteous indignation against the world, against him. She looked cold, though, stiff and unyielding as an angel would be. Except for her eyes, they seemed to flicker with life as she considered him. Jack could see the confusion and the human vulnerability in those eyes, qualities her father’s amber orbs never held.

“I want answers,” she said defiantly, finally meeting Jack’s gaze.

The growing look of sadness in the beautiful boy’s eyes was disconcerting to Valie. She shifted uncomfortably and her crossed arms hugged her torso tighter as she shifted her weight from foot to foot, awaiting his reply. When none was forthcoming, she went on. “And I don’t want to hear any more lies and excuses or that you’ll explain everything
later
,” she continued. “I want you to explain everything,
now.
You’ve taken me from my home against my will. You’ve driven me into another state entirely without my permission, you say I can’t see my father, that he wants to kill me because I’m some
half-blood
, but you won’t really tell me why! You won’t tell me the reason for any of it! There’s a part of me that thinks you don’t even know yourself.”    

Jack fought back a smile at her little rant. She was sort of cute when she was angry, though she was very right and the subject was definitely not funny.  However, the girl, must have seen the humor in his eyes, because she looked away, slightly embarrassed. “And why am I wearing your clothes?” she asked in a smaller, more uncertain voice.

“Because yours were all wet.”

“Oh.
Right. But you didn’t . . .,” she stuttered awkwardly, motioning with her hand to Jack’s clothes on her body. The boy let his eyes wander over her. He quite liked how his shirt looked on her—some primal male instinct he supposed. However, her eyes pleaded with him.

“No, I didn’t.  Shane did.”

“Good.” Valie nodded, her relief apparent. 

He did smile this time, as she looked down and away from him, almost coyly. Jack wished he could keep her like this as a sweet and blushing angel. Instead, he would be the one to usher her into the deep, dark underworld of the Occult. He felt like he was smearing blood on pure white silk. She, like it, would never be the same again. 

“Why am I here?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Jack closed his eyes and to his surprise, Valie allowed him his moment of silence.

When he opened his eyes they rose to meet Valie’s, sorrow deeply embedded in his unblinking gaze. She waited longer still.

Jack spoke slowly, a tired note to his tone, without further prompting, “I brought you here to keep you from him. As I said, we are members of his pack—we are
Isaac’s
pack
or, as we sometimes call it, our clan. We originally sought you out in the belief that Isaac, your father, as one of the Fated, had chosen you to become one of us—just as in the past each one of us had been chosen and transformed.”

Jack held up his hand as Valie began to interrupt. “I’ll just say it’s complicated; but it’s the pack leader’s decision based on his instincts. You were chosen. The human Mark has no say in it. But we were here to observe you for awhile—to make a final determination—before your transformation.

“At the time, we didn’t know that you were Isaac’s daughter. When we found out about your parentage and his plan to . . . to kill you, we began to make plans of stealing you away so that he couldn’t get to you. That’s how you came to be here with us.” He motioned around the room. “It’s not much, but it will do for now, before we’re forced to run again. Even now, he’s looking for us—and he’ll find us if we don’t work to stay hidden.”

“Why?” Valie whispered. Her stomach didn’t feel well, but she couldn’t worry about it. There were things she had to know
that were much too important to ignore. “Why does a father I’ve never known want to
kill
me?”

Jack felt the urge to move closer, but put his hands in his pockets and leaned heavily against the nearby wall, a seemingly casual pose if it hadn’t been for his tightened shoulders and grim expression. He watched Valie’s face with compassion and patience,
a patience Valie still did not understand.

“For our kind,” Jack nodded toward Valie and the girl started in her place. Accepting that she was one of them was still difficult. “It is against the law to have relations with humans, because
of the possibility of parenting a child. Having a half-blood child is strictly forbidden, because of the effects that the Change would have on the half-blood if they were ever bitten.”

Vehemently, Valie shook her head. She knew she was being stubborn, even dense, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t understand.  None of this really made any sense.

Jack sighed.  “Let me finish,” he insisted, but the seconds past while he stood staring at her with her jaws and fists clenched tightly.  Reluctantly, he continued, “When I say it’s against the law, I mean it is punishable.
Punishable by death
, in this case.  With Isaac seeking a position on our Council—one of the highest forms of government in the Occult world—Isaac wants to kill you first to cover up the only evidence left of his actions, to save his own hide and to better his chances of gaining that higher position.”

Valie stared at him, the numbness slowly spreading from her tortured mind to her extremities. She whispered haltingly, “My father wants to kill me, because I’m a half-blood?
Because I’m
his
half-blood that he had with my mom eighteen years ago.”

Jack didn’t respond, sensing the waves of shock crashing through the young girl. He leaned toward her, his hands thrown up as if to help her, but she held up one quivering hand in an effort to stave off both the boy and the fate that he was thrusting upon her.

From the kitchen, Noah entered quietly through the door with a scantily clad Shane behind. Her blonde hair was twisted in a messy knot at the top of her neck, and a long tee extended just to her thighs. They were both nibbling on food, and their casual humanness seemed to lighten the mood of the room. Valie blushed and tried to ignore them; she had to get answers before she would deterred by their presence.

“My father,” she began, “I mean, Isaac.” Valie was tired of calling him
father
. He was no father, no one she knew, no man she would
ever
want as a parent. “Isaac wants me dead, because somehow he would be threatened if other werewolves knew I was alive?
Why
is having a half-blood child such a horrible thing?”

“It is a very long story,” Jack tried to placate her. 

She fought down the tremor in her voice and said, “As far as
I
know, I’ve got time.”

The boy took a deep breath and released it slowly, but the muscles in his jaw tightened again before he answered, “Fine. Then I’ll be back. I need coffee,” he finished with a dismissive grunt. 

Valie could see Shane sipping a mug of steaming coffee in the entrance to the kitchen. The blonde watched her silently—with the same kind of aloofness as every other beautiful girl at school. Noah had taken a seat on the sofa and Valie now seated herself next to the boy. She felt comfortable with Noah even when his placid, steel gray eyes watched her. Not once had she ever felt threatened by Noah. But Jack’s eyes—Jack’s eyes could invade her soul, and she definitely minded. This very moment, those blue eyes were making the pit of her stomach tighten into knots as he stared at her over the steaming  cup of coffee he had retrieved from the kitchen. 

She bundled herself tighter in the blankets they had given her.  Jack’s scowl was intense, like he finally wanted to rid himself of her.  And this werewolf appeared as if, even though he stood there unmoving, he could jump from across the room in the blink of an eye and kill her. The seriousness, which had marked his features for the last two days, was now different—clouded by an unfathomable emotion, closer to consternation, which didn’t seem to fit the self-assured boy she had come to know him as.  The lines that furrowed his forehead seemed deeper, permanent—as if their owner had aged overnight. 

“Not that this isn’t fun,” Valie murmured.

Jack blinked and his eyes opened as if they had been closed instead of staring at her, as if he were seeing Valie for the first time in ages. She suddenly understood that his previously dismal stare had been directed inward and not at her at all. Though, the lines remained frozen on his face as he resumed his monologue.

“A long time ago,” Jack began. His voice was harsher-- whether from exhaustion or the subject matter, Valie couldn’t tell.  “And I mean a
long
time ago, the Elders of our species ignored the half-blooded children begotten from relationships with humans. What did it matter? It was such a rarity that a conceived child would survive until birth much less afterwards. See, werewolves are usually sterile. Generally, we can’t reproduce; werewolves exist only through transformation, but there remains the slight possibility of producing a child with a human. However—and this is another part of the reason the Elders ignored the occasional interspecies relationship—it is impossible for a human mother to survive pregnancy because of the conflicting genetic makeup between herself and the fetus.  I don’t know all the science behind it. I just know that carrying a half-Lycan child to term is difficult for humans and more often than not the mother miscarries or both die shortly after childbirth.

“Those rare half-bloods are not so easy to detect; they may not show any obvious signs of Lycanthropy. Each is different. You, for instance, obviously did not reap much physical benefit, only claustrophobia and a general athleticism.”

“Wait,” she interjected. Her voice was more controlled, now that she was getting answers. “I’m claustrophobic because I’m part
werewolf
?”

“Yes. All werewolves are to some degree. We’re fond of open spaces, not confinement. Yours is just more severe.” Jack went on. “But another half-blood might be abnormally fast or have our extraordinary night vision. But more often than not, they are sick from a young age and die because of it. And any reports of the kind of abilities I just mentioned are from long, long ago. To be honest, I haven’t heard of a modern case of a half-Lycan successfully developing to term.” Jack’s tone was
detached, clinical. It put Valie on edge.

Noah and Shane had hardly breathed up to this point, but now all three Lycans lowered their eyes rather than watch Valie’s face as the next part of the story was about to unfold. But Jack hesitated, unwilling to reveal anything more, though he knew better than anyone how much knowledge Valie needed right now.

“Jack, tell her about Leian’s son,” Noah interjected quietly.

“Leian?” the girl echoed.

Jack took a deep breath. “Leian was the father of our race, the first of us. There are a few stories floating around the ether as to how exactly Lycanthropes came to be but the only consistency is that Leian—one of the now-thought-to-be extinct Fey—was the first. It was his son, which he had produced with a human wife, who first exampled the ill effects of a half-blood breeding. His son was born with poor health as most half-bloods were. As the years passed, the boy’s sickness grew worse until finally, Leian, who blamed himself for his son’s condition, conjectured that a bite from a Lycanthrope might cure the boy of his infirmity. It wasn’t a bad idea, to be honest—we, as Lycans, enjoy many physical benefits such as superior strength and speed as well as healthiness. However, the experiment failed—horribly.”

At this point, Jack left off and the room grew quiet as a tomb.  Valie noticed the change in the atmosphere and looked from face to face. “W-what happened?”

Jack looked straight ahead as he spoke, “The boy, barely thirteen at the time, was driven insane; his human mind and consciousness were simply overwhelmed by his wolf instincts. At the full moon he turned into a monster, an uncontrollable, mindless beast-, a mutated combination of human and Lycanthrope genetics. He, unlike us, did not become a wolf, but a wolf-man, much more like the modern portrayals of werewolves than what a Lycan is truly supposed to be. The boy escaped his father, devastated his hometown, slaughtering anyone he came across. After several failed attempts by Leian to contain the situation, he was eventually forced to enlist the help of the few other Lycans of the time to hunt down and kill the boy. Soon after, Leian declared that if any Fated were to attempt to reproduce the beast which he had inadvertently created they should be executed for crimes against all species. It wasn’t until after Leian’s death that the ruling Interlunar Council of the Lycanthropes declared that producing half-blood children
at all
was also punishable by death.”