The Puppets and the Strings (A Werewolf's Saga Book 7) Read online

  “You know that this is such a different time than it was back then. You know how everything conspired against you, but this will not happen again. Casey has something that Sima never had.”

  He heard this, and felt the need to wipe the tears from his face so he did with the back of his hand.

  “What is that?” It didn’t work. Now his face wasn’t the only thing wet. His hands were covered.

  She grabbed her husband with both hands by his shoulders and held him firmly to her face. “He has us, together, united, standing by his side.”

  He saw her eyes sparkling, and realized that she shared his tears. She also shared his life.

  All of those years ago, he was alone after Alana was killed. He was alone when he fought his brother. He was alone against the world, but now, seeing her face, seeing the tears, he realized that this time, he wasn’t alone. She was with him, and will forever be true to it.

  She saw this, and she smiled. “You are so right Jimmy. You are so right Kalima. You are not alone.”

  He returned the smile, but it didn’t last. So he nodded instead. “You’re right. What would I ever do without you?” he quipped.

  She laughed. “You’d be a wreck and you know it.”

  He laughed too, and breathed down the tears. His eyes then dried.

  She reached in and kissed his lips. She kept her hands locked on to him, and refused to let him go.

  “We will get through all of this together Jimmy. I promise you that I will never leave your side.” She pulled away, but kept her eyes locked on to his.

  He loved her more than he ever did before now. “Okay.” She was more than his strength; she was now his soul. He gave his to her freely.

  “Good.” She looked back to the car. “I want you to take me home, just in case he comes back when you’re out looking for him, and then go and find him.” She looked back to him. “Just remember to talk to him. Don’t growl. Don’t raise your voice. Just talk to him as your son.”

  He laughed again with this. “No promises.”

  She laughed again too. “Let’s go, my little wolf.”

  He loved how she called him that. It always made him laugh. It made him feel better. She made everything livable again too.

  “What should I say?” He truly didn’t know where to start.

  She didn’t either, but she figured that would work just fine. “Just make it up as you go along.”

  He shook with this. It felt like a cold shudder flaring through his soul. He now truly felt scared.

  Together, they climbed into her car.

  Jimmy drove, and he took her home.

  8

  “I like what you’ve done to the place.” Robert got out of the long black car just after it pulled around the looped driveway at the front steps of the mansion. He knew where he was. He had been there before, but it had been a long time ago. Needless to say, the look of the place hadn’t changed much. With Walkers, it never did. They were consistent. They never changed.

  All of the great Walker families lived in mansions. They were wealthy. They were connected. Living for thousands of years gave them many things. They had their fingers in everything. They owned newspapers. They owned Fortune 500 companies. They had the resources very few ever had. In the end, they did well for themselves. To top it off, humans worked for monsters they didn’t even know existed. How funny was that?

  Sharlia was even waiting for him at the top of the steps. “Rochie, it is good to see you again. How long has it been my friend?” She carried a soft smile. She stood alone. She was happy to see him again. It had been years.

  He saw her fine clothes, smelled the staleness on the slight breeze coming from the direction of the house, and recognized all of his senses. She hadn’t changed either. She looked the same as she did when he first met her. He has known her for thousands of those same years. She was as endless as that of time itself, and of course, to him too.

  “It has been too long.” He climbed the steps.

  Now that he was closer to her, he looked so pale. His eyes almost looked—well—lifeless. He did not look like the vibrant man she remembered. He looked almost like one of them.

  “Are you ill my friend?” she just had to ask. She didn’t smell death on him. He did smell unkindly though. She just didn’t know what it meant.

  He bowed his eyes, and put both hands to the side pockets of his slacks. The tan blazer over the old dress shirt, bowed in at that bottom as he did it. The stains all over it showed too.

  “I am well.” He tried to give her a playful little grin but felt it fail. He hadn’t smiled for such a long time he wasn’t sure what it felt like anymore. It felt like a lifetime ago in deed.

  “You do not look well. You almost look like one like me.” She laughed.

  He didn’t. “Things haven’t been the same since you took over the council. I’ve been a tad bit bored of late.” He looked back and watched the car pull away and drive off towards his left. Nothing ever changed. The order of the families always remained. The workers worked as the leaders did all of the talking.

  She nodded. She actually understood this. She had kept the peace, which meant that the Truce Keeper, as he was for so long, was no longer needed. It must be very hard on him with nothing to do. She understood it, but still felt some pride for it too. She just realized right then that she couldn’t let him see it. She may be a monster, but she still had feelings too.

  “Well I bet that you are wondering why I would have called you here such as it is.” It was time to get down to the business at hand anyway. She owed him a lot. She would never waste his time.

  This time he did smile. He had forgotten how honorable she really was. He nodded with her for it.

  “What can I do to help the great Master Sharlia?”

  She stepped closer to him and stopped right in front of him. Being this close to him, she could smell his overly human stench. He smelled like he hadn’t showered for days. It all made her feel for him more.

  “I was hoping if you could help me find someone.”

  He nodded again. “You are looking for Kalima?” He already knew the question before she even finished asking it. He saw it in her eyes.

  She bowed. “You are still good at this, I see.”

  He shrugged. The tan coat creaked beneath his arms. It was very old. He was surprised that it hadn’t fallen apart yet. Thankful that it hadn’t, he liked it a lot, but still he was surprised.

  “Why do you need to find him?”

  “I need to speak with him about a very important thing.”

  He sighed. He felt just as useless again. “I can’t help you my lady. I do not know how to find him.” He looked down to the tops of his shoes. Where hers were new and clean, and more than likely extremely expensive, his were not. In fact, the shoe on his left foot had a hole near the big toe. He obviously needed new sneakers.

  She already saw his shoes, and again just felt sorry for him. He obviously fell very far from what he used to be.

  “Is he not with your sister? You must be speaking with her.” It made sense. She knew how he loved her. She knew that he married her too. After Brandon Gorhan married the black wolf Sasha, Kalima disappeared with Rana. She didn’t know where they went, but just granted them the peace that they deserved when they did. If it weren’t for everything now going on, she wouldn’t ever bother him again.

  He should be with her. He should be a part of her life. He wasn’t though. He didn’t have any other choice.

  “She has spoken to me some, yes, but she has never told me where they are. They have kept much to their chests. I’ve given that to them.” He also knew that none of the Walkers knew about their child, their son. They wanted it that way; so again, he had no other choice but to accept their wishes. He kept their secrets well.

  She shook her head with hearing this. She didn’t want to. She feared it too.

  “Then it may be too late.” She now felt deflated. She felt winded. She felt all hope just vanish away.r />
  He saw this in her eyes. “What is wrong?” It was his turn to feel for her.

  She bowed her face. “Something is very wrong in this world. Without Kalima to come to us, and help us, we may see the end of our time.”

  Her voice said more than her eyes ever could. She is afraid. She’s terrified. I have rarely ever seen her this way.

  “What is it Sharlia? What has happened?” He wouldn’t lie about this, but he did feel somewhat strong hearing this too. The great and mighty Walkers needed help. They came to him. He felt better than he had in years. He just couldn’t show it to be polite, so he did try to push it away. He felt he succeeded at it too.

  She looked back up. “Follow me and I will show you.” She didn’t know if he could help her or not, but if he wished to see her fears, she would show him. She had nothing left to lose.

  He did follow her.

  She led him through the front door and turned left just before the large oval staircase that went up to the second floor to the right of the foyer. A huge crystal chandelier hung highly over the stairs. She entered a long hallway that went along the front of the home. When she reached the only door at the end of the hallway, she opened it.

  He looked inside the room.

  Four bodies lie there stretched out on the floor with their heads towards him. They had sheets covering them and it made them look like true ghosts.

  She walked inside and went to the first body on her right. She bent down and removed the sheet.

  The young woman was the same color as the sheet.

  Robert bent down over her head, just to Sharlia’s left arm. He knew instantly what he saw.

  The woman was not only pale, but also looked to be in her twenties. Her blonde hair blended into her white skin. Her eyes were closed. She looked completely at peace. She also looked very dead, which meant that she couldn’t be a Walker. Walkers looked dead even when they were alive. He couldn’t explain it any better than that. Living for as long as he has, and seeing death in all of its variety, it felt like seeing art. You knew it when you saw it.

  “Human?” he stood up.

  She stayed there at her once proud friend’s side. “She was not when she left this home several days ago.” She couldn’t take her eyes off her. She was so beautiful when she lived that she could never let that go either. How could she? “She was one of my family’s greatest Shades. She walked the night.”

  This confused him instantly. “She looks human to me.” He looked back down at the young woman. Her face looked soft. He could see a bloodied, deep slash across her throat. Walkers did not die from having their throats cut. They were stronger than that, and a Shade, as she claimed she was, would have healed from such a wound—usually.

  Sharlia shook her head. “They were human when they died, but they were not beforehand.” She placed the sheet back over her beautiful face. She did so as gently as she could. Chandra—that was her name—deserved so much more than that. “She was one of my children.”

  This didn’t help him all that much. “I don’t understand.”

  She stood up and faced him. “Have you heard of the Gathering Storm?”

  He hadn’t. “No.”

  It was time to explain—if she could. “For some time now, we Elders have come across a group of humans that call themselves the Gathering Storm. They have started hunting us.”

  “Hunting you?”

  “Yes.” She looked back to her friends. “They have somehow found a way to neutralize our gifts. They make us Walkers human again. They then take our lives with a human’s death.” She looked back up.

  “How? How could they do such a thing?” This gripped his mind. He knew how humans had fought them in the past. He knew about the peace that was made before the Walkers became nothing but myths in the human world. He knew that few humans even knew about their existence. It was so much to take in at once. He just tried to keep up.

  She breathed in with a giant breath. “We do not know how they have done this, but they have done it.” She reached in to the side pocket of the jacket she wore, and pulled out a small ring sized case and held it out between them. She opened it and revealed what looked like a small needle and cap.

  It looked like a miniature syringe, maybe a dart. He just wasn’t sure.

  “We have found this in their flesh. We have found it in all of them.”

  He looked at it, and suddenly felt his mind flinch. He had seen such a thing before. He gasped with the flinch.

  She noticed his reaction, and it told her only one thing. “You know what this is, do you not?”

  He looked back up as his mind flew in a thousand directions. He could just shake his head as he tried to gather it back together again. When he felt sure it was; he began.

  “One time before, a few years ago, a group of humans used a dart like that against me and Jimmy. It somehow caused him to lose his strength. It had some type of drug inside it.”

  She heard this, and felt surprised. At the same time, she felt angry too. “You have never spoken of such a drug before.” If they had known about it, she might have been able to prepare her families against it. She did not know how, but it would have helped her. She just knew it.

  He heard the anger in her voice, so he knew that he had to explain it. “Several years ago, a man named Richard Ross used this drug against Jimmy. From what I know of this man, this Ross worked for the Gorhans. They had developed it to control the one who held Kalima before he found Jimmy. I don’t know how it worked.”

  She huffed. “The Gorhans knew of this.” She snapped the cover back shut on the case. She then turned back to the center of the room. Inside her, she felt like she was about to explode. She almost couldn’t believe it either. Just the thought of one of her largest, greatest families knowing about this made her mind rash with hatred. It was all too horrific to let her think straight.

  Again, he heard her anger. He expected as much. “I understand your rage my lady, but it was at the time when Devish controlled the Gorhans. As far as I am aware of it, the drug was destroyed after his fall.” He remembered this. Brandon took care of it as far as he knew of it.

  She turned back to him and looked him in the eyes. “They obviously did not take care of this as you remembered them doing it.” She saw the truth in his eyes, and it made her calm down some because of it. He obviously knew only what he did.

  He nodded. “Then we should speak with Brandon about this.” He looked back to the bodies, and then back to her. “If somehow, someone else has discovered this than we must find out who that is?” He suddenly felt needed again, and it made him feel even stronger than he had in years. It felt damned good too.

  Normally she would have agreed. “I only wish we could.” She felt worse than ever.

  He heard as much in her voice. “Why, what happened?” It didn’t sound good.

  She sighed. “Lord Brandon Gorhan has vanished from the council. We have not heard from him in years.”

  He didn’t expect this, and feared what it meant. “Has this Gathering Storm gotten to him too?”

  She shook her head with disgust. She had it all over her face too. “Not that I am aware of it.”

  He felt confused again. “Then what? What happened to him?”

  She sighed again too. “He and Lady Sasha have apparently ended their marriage, and with it, he has ended his sanity. He has become a recluse with the Blood thirst.”

  He felt somewhat relieved with this, but at the same time, he felt worried for his friends too. Hearing about the Blood thirst didn’t help him at all.

  “He has the thirst?” He knew how bad that was. After all, look what it had done with Devish. Look how it had almost destroyed the world. The thirst made Walkers mindfully mad. Just thinking that Brandon, that goofy friend of Jimmy, could have fallen into that madness burned his mind. He felt so saddened by it. He understood why Sasha would have broken off their marriage to him too. He felt for everything, all at once.

  She felt more disgusted than
ever. “Not with humans.” She felt the need to explain this, even though it hurt her to have to do it. It almost made her feel ashamed with it too. “He has found cats.” It made her bow her head.

  He understood her reasons for both. “Cats? Like mountain lion cats?” He felt her disgust for the thirst, and the shame for showing a lack of strength. As the saying went; if you are going to do something go all out to do it. A Walker going after something so small wouldn’t fit them. In some ways, it was beneath them too. Unless of course he was hunting large cats—they could handle that.

  She shook her head, and the shame only increased in her eyes. “I wish it were true, but no. He has found a fondness for house cats.”

  He just swallowed for her. “I see. House cats, huh?” He felt like laughing. Just the thought of a powerful Nightwalker out stalking cats, small and helpless felines, made him almost do it. It was too funny after all, that he just couldn’t help himself.

  She swallowed too, and switched gears right along with it. “I guess we could speak with Sasha, and find out what she can about this drug.” This was not funny at all.

  He knew what she did, and went along with her on it. “Is she leading the Gorhans now?” He could only hope.

  She shook her head again. “The Gorhans are leaderless. Their true leader has abandoned them. She does control the family with who is left.” At least she hoped. Learning what she had so far, she began to feel it again too.

  He agreed with her, in more ways than one. “Then we should go and talk with her.” He had hope. He also felt right again too. Even the smirk left his face.

  She nodded. “If she can help us, then I know that we came to the right person to help us. We may not need Kalima after all.”