Wyvern and Company (10 page)

"I'll help cook," Uncle Lion offered.

"Good," Joey's shoulders sagged in relief. "I
was hoping somebody would volunteer. I make good garlic cheese bread, but my
sauce isn't the best."

"Let's go," Lion grinned and Mack and I were
transported back to the beach house.

* * *

Mom slept most of the afternoon, and I saw what Joey could do
when she woke up feeling nauseated. He had her feeling better and eating in
just a few minutes. We didn't get to enjoy the whole day like I thought we
would, though.

Spawn attacked another cabin at Shaver Lake, and Uncle Dragon
transported us straight there in a blink.

Chapter 6
 

Spawn ran from the carnage the minute we arrived, but it was
too late to save anybody. Half-eaten bodies were strewn everywhere, but the
birthday cake? It sat pristine and untouched atop a white tablecloth that
someone had spread over a picnic table.

The worst part?

The birthday party was for kids
. They couldn't have
been more than eight or nine, and most of them had been devoured. Only bits and
pieces remained, while the adults were dismembered and only partially eaten.

I felt sick—and then I felt angry. Strange, too, that all
those emotions ran through me in three blinks. "Son, let's go after them,"
Dad tapped my shoulder.

"Yeah," I nodded. I wanted to take something apart
right then, and the ugly, heartless creatures that did this? They were my
chosen targets.

"I want to," Mack growled beside me. I knew his wolf
was only waiting for a target after seeing what was left behind following a
spawn feeding frenzy.

"Change now," Dad nodded to both of us. "I'll
fold us in front of them. Dragon, Lion and your mother are already chasing them."

I took one more look at the bloody carnage surrounding the
cabin before allowing my anger to force the Wyvern into existence. Mack was out
of his clothes and turned to werewolf almost as fast. Dad folded space with
both of us.

There!
I heard Dad's voice inside my head. Jerking my
snout in the direction he'd indicated, I saw them.

They were running straight at us. It didn't take a genius to
figure out why after a few seconds—Uncle Dragon's Dragon, Uncle Lion's Lion
and—wow. All I could think was
wow
. A unicorn, nine feet tall at the
shoulder and shining white in the late afternoon light of a California day,
raced between Dragon and Lion.

That's your mother
, Dad informed me.
Anything touched
by her horn dies. Get ready, we're about to kill spawn
.

I'm ready
, I thought. I was ready. My breathing sounded
like a bellows as I allowed my anger to become white-hot. Mack's wolf growled
beside me.

You have mindspeech already—very good
, Dad responded to
my thoughts.
Here they come
. His claws formed on his hands, but he kept
his human shape. I could see we still needed to have a conversation about that.

Not now, the spawn—twenty-four of them—hit us like a storm.

Mack and I allowed instinct to take over. I'm glad it was
available to us—our animals killed the spawn that thought to attack or run past
us. What we didn't get, Dad did. I'd never seen anything move that fast before.
The spawn were fast, but he was faster.

Spawn dust exploded around us whenever we made a kill, and I
can only imagine that it resembled a black cloud to anyone who might have seen
it happening from a distance.

The only sounds, however, came from us—grunting, growling and
hissing. Spawn are eerily silent—when they attack and when they die.

Mack's shoulder was sliced by one that got too close, but Dad
killed it before it could make a second strike.

That's when Dragon, Lion and Mom joined the fray. They trapped
the spawn between us and it didn't take long after that.

I blinked as Dragon became himself and lifted a hand
afterward. Piles of black spawn dust disappeared around us while Mack and I
watched.

"Mack," Mom became herself again, "Let me see
your shoulder." She walked toward us. "Justin, turn back, honey. Mack
needs your shirt."

Joey arrived in seconds with a pair of pants for Mack, while I
shrugged out of my shirt and offered it to him.

He took it with his right hand while Mom and Joey healed the
slice on his left shoulder.

"Wow, I can barely see a red line," Mack said as he
studied the mark on his shoulder.

"You did so well," Mom hugged him. "Your wolf
is an amazing fighter."

"Thanks, Mrs. G," Mack's face went pink at her
praise.

"You, too, honey," she came to me. "No wounds?"
she looked me over, paying attention to my arms and head.

"I don't feel anything," I croaked. "Can we get
some water?"

"We'll go home. The authorities will arrive at the cabin
any minute, so Dragon will erase any evidence we were there," she sighed. "Come
on, I'll take you this time."

We landed in the kitchen of the new house, and I realized then
that we really hadn't spent much time in it. Too many other things had
happened, when we should be enjoying our new home.

Pulling glasses from the cabinet, I filled them with cold
water from the fridge and set them in front of Mom and Mack before getting some
for myself. Dad, Joey, Dragon and Lion came in shortly after, so they got
water, too.

"Thirsty business," Lion nodded his thanks when I
set his glass down.

All of us avoided the subject of dead kids at a lake cabin. I
didn't know whom to blame now that the actual perpetrators were dead, but
somebody needed blaming, in my opinion.

Instead, I said, "Dad, tell me about your claws. Does
everybody else have those?"

"No," Dad sighed. "I have them because I used
to be a vampire. Before you ask, the old stories are true—real vampires die in
the sun. It's a way of killing them."

"You lived in the dark?" I began, after shoving
aside my initial shock.
Dad was a vampire?

"For more than two hundred years," he nodded, his
eyes meeting mine. "That's how things were for me when I met your mother.
I keep my vampire abilities—they come in handy quite often."

"But what about," Mack began. He was werewolf; I
guess it only made sense that there were vampires, too.

"You want to know about the blood, don't you?" Dad
turned his gaze on him. "It's true—vampires drink blood to survive. Most
drink bagged blood nowadays—it's safer for everybody that way."

"But," I said.

"Yes. If you're wondering, your mother doesn't mind if I
bite occasionally," Dad said. "Although not while she's pregnant,
unless I want to die. I believe Karzac or Pheligar would be happy to make that
happen if the rules are broken. Before you ask, I don't bite anyone else. End
of statement and no more questions."

"I guess it's not every day you learn your dad's a
vampire," Mack observed philosophically. "Or a werewolf."

That made me laugh. Just a few days earlier, I'd have said
someone was lying if they'd said that to Mack and me. The truth of it was now
slapping us in the face. We went to school with humans, but we'd never been
human. It was almost too much to consider.

"Should we watch the local news, or have we seen enough
tragedy for today?" Mom asked.

"I'd say we've seen enough," Lion said. "Marlianna
is coming tomorrow—we'll move into the guesthouse then."

"I'll look forward to that," Mom said. She hesitated
for a moment. "Actually, Lion, can you ask her to come now? I have
something for her."

"I can if that's what you want," he said.

"I do."

"Marli, my love, can you come?" Lion said to empty
air. I gaped as Marlianna, Uncle Lion's wife, appeared from nowhere at his
side.

"Kee says she has something for you," Lion grinned
and put an arm around her waist. Aunt Marlianna's skin is the color of warm
caramel, and she is so pretty that people stare if she goes anywhere with us.
She leaned down to kiss Uncle Lion, who still sat at the island. It's not hard
to see that they love each other a lot.

"You have something for me?" Marlianna smiled at
Mom. "Congratulations, by the way, Lion told me about the baby." She
couldn't keep the wistfulness out of her voice when she said that.

"That's what I have for you," Mom offered her a
tired smile. "As First among the Saa Thalarr, I am giving you permission and
the ability to get pregnant. To both of you. My word is law."

A brief flash of light followed her statement. I have no idea
what all that meant, but Dad, Joey and Dragon perked right up and Marlianna
turned to Uncle Lion with a happy squeal.

Lion stood really fast, hefted Marlianna into his arms and
they disappeared.

"Kiarra, what did you just do?" Pheligar, the tall,
blue man appeared, his arms crossed over his chest in disapproval.

"What should have been done a long time ago," Mom
snapped at him.

"You are dangerously close to overstepping your
authority," Pheligar pointed out.

"But I didn't. Admit it—this is only fair," Mom defended
herself. "If I can get pregnant, it's fair that someone else should, too.
Especially since they want that more than anything. Marli is a healer. It
shouldn't affect much with her—Joey can fill in for her when needed when she's
too far along. Nobody deserves a baby more than those two."

"I would like to argue this with you, and you should have
consulted with me before doing it," Pheligar grumped.

"What's stopping you from arguing now?" Mom
demanded.

"This has been a trying day for you and the others. A
better time will come and we will discuss this use—and potential abuse—of your
position."

"You have to ruin everything, don't you?" Mom
snapped.

"I realize your hormones are affecting your body and your
temper. As I said, a better time will come for us to discuss this."

"You are an insufferable blue ass," Mom shouted.

"As all of my skin is blue, it is only logical that my
ass, as you so inappropriately put it, is also blue."

How often does this happen?
I sent mindspeech to Dad.

With frightening regularity
, he replied.

Can we go out to eat tonight? I think Mack's gonna cave in.

We can, if we can pull your mother away from the Larentii
.

"I'm hungry," I announced, interrupting the
argument. Mom had stood and started shaking a finger while yelling at Pheligar,
and that didn't look safe to me.

"Look," Mom said, "If you want to continue this
argument, you can make yourself look human and go out to eat with us. Mack and
Justin are starving."

"I did not start this," Pheligar huffed.

"Then either come with or take a hike," Mom flung
out a hand.

Without blinking, Pheligar caught her hand, patted it and put
it at her side. "I will accompany you," he said. Mack and I gasped as
he transformed himself. He looked like someone who could be your neighbor, with
glasses and everything. I clapped a hand over my mouth—I'd seen this guy before—right
after Mack's life was saved.

"Holy cow," I mumbled between my fingers.

Please do not let your werewolf friend know his life almost
ended. He has enough worries
, a strange voice—Pheligar's voice—sounded in
my head.

Sure thing
, I sent back. Oddly enough, he didn't seem
surprised that I had mindspeech. My curiosity about the Larentii reached an
all-time high at that moment, and I was determined to learn all I could about
him and his race.

We didn't go to Giorgio's, which disappointed me, but it was
just as well—Pheligar, Mom and the others wanted to talk business. We ended up
in a private room at our favorite Japanese restaurant instead.

If Mack had turned to werewolf, he'd have wagged his tail
because he loves sushi.

"The young ones are curious, and as little information
was given them earlier," Pheligar began.

Mack and I learned about the Saa Thalarr that night. We
discovered that Saa Thalarr meant
Hope and Vengeance
in a long-dead
language. We heard how they were a race created specifically to combat spawn
and those that made spawn—the Ra'Ak. I hadn't heard that word before and wanted
to ask questions immediately.

"Here." Joey held out a hand, where a tablet
appeared. The thing was, I'd never seen a tablet like that one before.

"It's a comp-vid," Dad said. "You'll learn more
about that later. Joey has images of Ra'Ak. Understand those are difficult to
come by," he added.

Holding the comp-vid so Mack could see, too, I studied the
giant serpent depicted on the screen. "How big?" I asked.

"Average size runs twenty to forty feet, with younger
ones smaller and older ones longer—they grow all their lives," Mom said. "Three
to four feet thick at their widest. If you meet one of the longer ones, then
you know he's one of their strongest and most cunning fighters to have survived
so many centuries. When they're not fighting us, they fight each other."

"You fight those things?" Mack shook his head.

"Everything about them is poisonous," Joey said. "Scales,
teeth, spikes, all of it."

"That takes the term
snake
to a whole new level,"
I breathed.

"It's part of our job to heal scale poison—that's the
least harmful," Joey explained. "Teeth or spike injuries can be fatal
if they're not treated immediately after the Ra'Ak dies."

"Why does the Ra'Ak have to die first?" Mack asked.
I hadn't realized how valid that question might be, and felt a chill seep
through me when Mom answered.

"Every challenge we make against the Ra'Ak is to the
death," she said. "Worlds depend on the outcome of a challenge. If we
win, the planet lives. If the Ra'Ak win, they devour and destroy it. They haven't
won a fight in more than fourteen thousand years. They'd love to take one of us
down because of that."

"How many of you died before that?" I asked. I had
to know—I was beginning to realize that my parents had a dangerous vocation.

"Many," Pheligar answered.

"Too many," Dragon amended the Larentii's statement.
"When Kiarra became First, things changed. She carefully measures the Saa
Thalarr's talents against the necessary requirements to save the world in
question."

"She consults me every time to help determine what is
needed," Pheligar said. "It is my job, as Liaison to the Saa Thalarr,
to aid as much as I can without interfering. My race does not interfere as a
rule, but acting as Liaison is considered a great honor among my peers."