(A/n- Cassandra is back by reviewers demand! Yay! Well
here's the story…)
I looked out at all the
dead, crumpled bodies. I wanted to do something, but I couldn't. When ever I
tried to reach out to help an invisible wall blocked me. As soon as the wall
blocked me a laugh would ring through my ears. None of my friends were with me.
they were spread around watching the people drop to the ground. I didn't know
the people, but I felt some strange connection to them. I turned around to look
behind me, but all I saw were bright yellow orbs. Not moons, but something
else. I felt my own body crumple and fall to the ground.
~
I woke up suddenly. My
pillow was drenched with sweat, and I was breathing heavily.
"Just a dream." I muttered.
But even though I clicked on my bedside light. Looking my self over I saw that
my hands had turned to paws, and in my mouth fangs had grown.
"Ok, Cass just calm down.
It was just a dream." I sighed putting my head in my arms. "a dream that keeps
repeating it's self over and over."
I looked at my clock. It
said 6:00. I wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep so I got out of my
bed, still trying to calm down. In my mind I kept seeing the two round yellow
orbs. All the stress wasn't helping me wolf-down. Fifteen minutes later when I
got out of the shower I still had paws.
In the kitchen I ate a
quick breakfast, and scribbled a note to my parents.
Going to Merton's then
to school. I'll probably be home late.
My parents wouldn't care as
long as I left a note, so I hurried over to Merton's Lair.
I found Merton in his Lair running a comb through his spiked
hair. He looked at me weirdly when I walked in. Then he noticed the paws (which
still hadn't disappeared).
"What happened?" he asked.
"Another bad dream?"
"Yeah, but this time I wolfed
out during it. The fangs disappeared, but…"
"Ok," he motioned for me to
sit down. "Picture a nice green field, cute little animal running all around.
There's a family having a picnic on the top…"
I looked at my hands, the
paws were disappearing. "Merton."
"The little boy is chasing
the cute little rabbit," said Merton, sort of lost in his own little world.
"Merton!" I said loudly. It
seemed to knock him off of the green field.
"What? Oh sorry." He
blushed. "You need a ride to school, I'll drive you back here after school too
since it's a full moon?"
"Yeah, thanks." I sat down
by his computer. "So'd you have any weird dreams?"
"no, not unless you count
Becky dying as weird." He said. "C'mon, I found my keys."
~
My biology teacher had gone
on maternity leave for the rest of the school year, so now we had a permanent
sub for the rest of the year. When I walked into the class I noticed a lot of
things different about it. Overnight animals seemed to have appeared. There
were cages of snakes, toads, and chickens. That was it.
I took my regular seat next
to Becky Dingle. I been friends with her before I'd been bitten, I was even
friends with her for awhile after. But that ended when she found me in Merton's
Lair talking with him. Our old teacher hadn't allowed us to switch lab partners
so we were stuck together.
"My name is Miss. Lajend.
I'll be your biology teacher for the rest of the year. The animals around the
class are my own and I have them here just because I don't have room in my
home. The snakes are very dangerous and I wouldn't advise messing with them."
She paused letting her 'warning' sink in. "For the rest of the year we'll be
studying reptiles, mainly snakes."
"Ew." Most of the kids
groaned.
"Please take out a pencil
and a notebook." She pulled up the projector screen which was hanging down over
the blackboard. "and copy these notes."
There were a few notes on
the board of what we were going to be studying. I was finished with in five
minutes and since she hadn't given us any other work, I put my head down on my
desk and fell asleep.
I was back in the invisible
cage, and around me people were still dying. The only difference was this time
I knew the connection I had with these people…they were all good werewolves,
and they were all dying. I tried to knock down the barrier but it didn't budge.
I looked at my other friends. Lori was standing watching in horror what was
happening. Tommy realized who the people were and started banging on the
useable wall. Merton looked like he was trying to figure something out, but was
struggling with an answer. I didn't know what to do, but I didn know I needed
to tell the others. So I turned around in my cage. The yellow orbs were there
again, and again I fell to the ground.
I looked up, making sure I
was back in the science room. Becky was scowling at me.
"Don't talk in your sleep."
She said. "I'm trying to forget you sit here."
"What'd I say?" I hoped she
hadn't heard anything important.
"Something about eyes, and
wolves." She whispered. "Now don't talk to me, people might think we're
friends."
I rolled my eyes, and
looked at the clock. Thirty seconds until the bell rang. I started putting
stuff back in my back pack when I stopped. Becky had said that I'd been talking
about eyes. I remembered the yellow orbs from my dream.
"They're eyes." I gasped as
the bell rang. "Eyes."
I picked up my bad and ran
out of the room. In the hall I headed towards the cafeteria .
"Cass!" I turned hearing
Tommy call my name. He hurried to catch up with me.
"Hey." I said.
"Listen, you've been having
those weird dreams right?" he asked.
"Yeah. I just had…"
"Another one." Finished
Tommy. "I had one too, and Merton and Lori had some blurry images. Our teacher
hadn't completely bored them to sleep."
"Did you see the eyes?" I
walked backwards facing him.
"The yellow things?" He
opened the cafeteria door for me. "that's how I woke up."
"And you know who those
people were?" I asked lowering my voice.
Tommy just nodded and sat
down at a table.
"so now the question is
who's doing that?" I said. "and is it a dream or something real."
"Here comes Merton and
Lori." Tommy pointed to the two coming through the door. "Merton'll probably
know something by now."
Lori went for the lunch
line, but Merton came right over and sat down.
"I have it." He announced
pulling a book out of his backpack. "It's a basilisk."
"What?"
"A basilisk. I guess you
could call them demon snakes." Merton opened up his book. "let's see, born from
a chicken egg hatched under a toad, can grow to be fifty feet long, and it's
bright green. It also has bright yellow eyes, if you look into its eyes you die
instantly."
"That's why they wake us up
when we look at them." Said Tommy. "I wonder if that's what's also killing all
those people."
"I wonder if some how the
sandman escaped." Lori slid into a seat next to Merton.
"He's at home in my
hourglass." Merton assured us.
"So is this really
happening somewhere?" I asked.
"I'll get back to you on
that one."
I laughed. "Just say you
don't know."
"So," Lori changed the
subject. "How's that new Bio teacher?"
"Bio?" My eyes widened.
"Why don't you guys come see her in person."
They looked at me
strangely. "Trust me, you really want to see this." I jerked my head to the
door. They got up and followed me out.
"Just look in, notice the
animals." I said when we reached the biology room door.
Merton was the first to
look in.
"Yeah that might explain
it." He slumped to the floor. "I think our new bio teacher has a side job as a
werewolf murdering basilisk breeder."
~
"So is it possible to defeat a basilisk?" asked Lori that evening.
"Sure. In J.K. Rowlling's,
'Harry Potter and the Chamber of secrets' Harry had to defeat a basilisk." Said
Merton.
"Well what happened?" I
asked.
"Well everyone agreed that
it wasn't great. Bad characters like Lockhart and Dobby, all in all not a great
plot."
"The book." Said Tommy.
"What happened in the book?"
"Oh, right." Merton seemed
to be trying to remember. "I think Harry eventually had to stab it."
"That can't be to hard."
Lori said swiftly. "We take a sword and stab it."
"Not that easy." Merton
held up a thick book about mythical creatures. "Basilisks are incredibly swift
and agile." He quoted.
"Still shouldn't be that
hard." Said Lori.
I put my paw/hand in the
air. "One little detail, this thing could be fifty feet long."
"That makes it hard." Lori
admitted.
"Any other ways to kill
it?" asked Tommy.
"feed it chicken." Said
Merton. "But we've got as much a chance of doing that as we do of surviving a
jump off the sears tower."
"Are those snakes in the
Bio room Basilisks?" Lori asked me.
"She told us to stay away
from them, so I didn't get a chance to look at them closely." I said. "and now
that I know that looking into their eyes can kill me, I don't think that I
really want to look at them. You sure you don't have anything else?"
"Well," Merton opened his
closets. "when I was younger I had a suspicion about my friends snake, so maybe
I do have another solution." He pulled out a box marked with the red cross
sign. "I had to hide it from my parents though."
"Red pepper?" Tommy looked
into the box.
"Slow 'em down." Said
Merton. "Then we have a knife, chicken, and chicken blood."
"That's some really moldy
chicken." Lori covered her nose with her hand.
"Well it's been in there
for seven years. I'll replace it."
"What time is it?" I asked
suddenly.
"11:00" said Merton.
"Oh god, I gotta go." I
jumped up. "I'm thirty minutes late."
"You've got early curfew."
Said Tommy.
"Incase you've forgotten,
I'm younger than you guys. I've gotta be home at 10:30, and it's hard enough to
sneak into my room as it is."
~
I had a dreamless sleep
that night, so I came to school in a pretty good mood, that is until I got to
Biology. See I walked into the classroom, and there was a new cage. When I
walked up to it I saw a green snake coiled up. Uncoiled I figured it could be
about thirty feet long.
"Miss Black." I turned, and
saw Miss Lajend standing behind me.
"Oh, hi." I edged away from
the cage.
"That snake is the most
dangerous of them all, I wouldn't bother it if I were you." She glared at me,
then turned around and walked back to front of the class. I sighed and leaned
against another cage. It was the one filled with the smaller snakes, they were
also green. I caught glimpse of a yellow eye, and quickly moved my head. Then I
started mentally counting them.
'forty-seven.' I thought.
'Not good.'
The late bell rang and I
rushed to my seat. Miss. Lajend watched me through the whole class. The first
part of class was just copying notes off of the board. For the second part she
took out the largest basilisk.
"Does anyone know what type
of snake this is?" she asked the class.
I raised my hand. "Yes."
She called.
"Well if I didn't know
better I'd say it was a basilisk." I said daringly.
"Those are mythical
creatures." She said staring at me. "This is an anaconda. One of the largest
snakes in the world."
'also illegal to own' I
thought, but I said nothing. I noticed that she was careful to keep the snakes
head tilted backward so no one could see its eyes. That alone was proof enough.
Finally the bell rang
signaling the end of the class. Miss Lajend stood at the door saying good bye.
I was the last one out, which was a good thing considering she grabbed my arm
and pulled me back inside the class.
"Listen." She didn't have a
teachers voice now; now she just sounded mean. "I know what you are, little
wolf-girl, and I know what your friend Tommy is too. So if you're smart you'll
stay out of my way, or I let your secret slip, then kill you with one of my
basilisks."
"You'll kill us anyway." I
retorted. "You're killing all good werewolves."
"I just do the job the
person hires me to do. It pays well."
"Who hired you?" I asked.
"Some monks, but that's
besides the point." She waved her hand carelessly. "Just stay out of my way
until I come for you. Won't matter much then either, because when I come for
you, I'll kill you." She laughed.
"I'd like to see you try."
My voice sounded a lot more confident than I felt.
"Oh I will." She said. "You
two are worth 10,000 dollars to these people, so you can trust me when I say
that I'll try everything to get you dead."
~
"We're gonna die." I
announced at lunch.
"What else is new?" asked
Lorie
"No seriously, those snakes
in the bio room are basilisks, and now she's got one that's about thirty feet
long, and yeah she's after us, and all good werewolves. Apparently some monks
hired her to knock…"
"Monks?" Merton squeaked.
"This had 'Syndicate'
written all over it." Said Lorie. "If I remember correctly they looked like
monks with the way they dressed."
"Do they always come back
like this?" I moaned.
"We haven't really had a
break from them since we met." Merton explained. "Hey, Tommy you still with
us?" We all looked at Tommy who was staring at,
"You were staring at Cass."
Merton raised his eyes brows. "Got something…"
"Shut up." Tommy closed the
conversation.
"You didn't here a word of
what we said, did you?" I asked grinning.
"No not really."
"Well in less than twenty
words," said Merton. "the syndicate's trying to have you killed."
~
(A/n- thanks for the reviews.
They so totally boosted my morale. And special note to The phoenix: I can't
send this in to Fox Family! I'd be so nervous about putting it the mail It'd
probably never get put in the mail!)
~
That afternoon I walked
home with Tommy after school. I lived about three blocks down from him so it
wasn't that much of a detour for me.
"You wanna come in?" he
asked as we reached his house.
"Oh, sure." I shrugged.
Inside Tommy lead me past
Dean in the living room and into the kitchen.
"So anything you wanted to
talk about?" I asked raising my eyebrows.
"No, not really." He go two
cups out. "soda or juice?"
"Soda." I said thinking,
'No means yes.'
He bought the drinks to the
table. We sat in silence except for the TV and Dean's laughing in the back round.
I knew what he was thinking, he was a boy after all.
"You," I put my glass on
and stared at Tommy. "are about to kiss me, so why don't you just do it and get
it over with. Stop keeping me in suspense."
"What?" Tommy (tried to)
looked surprised.
"I have a brother, trust me
I know."
He grinned, leaned over the
table and kissed me on the cheek. To my surprise I wolfed out.
"Ok, I didn't expect that."
I said looking at my self.
"It happens." He said
kissing me again, and transforming himself.
"Two werewolves kissing in
the kitchen, doesn't look to weird." I said quietly. "What if Dean looks in?"
"He hardly ever turns
around, and the last time he got up was when the batteries ran out of the
remotes and nobody was home to get new ones. That was about a year ago." He said.
I kissed him on the lips
this time. "I'm gonna go now. I'll see you in school tomorrow."
I jumped up and grabbed my
stuff, leaving Tommy staring as I walked out the door.
~
"Well what do you think?"
"I'm not exactly the person
go to for relationship advice." Merton sighed. "All the people I've dated have
either been werewolf slayers, spider-people, or life suckers."
"Yeah I know, but I can't
talk to Lori about it because she and Tommy just broke up, and most of my old
friends aren't talking to me because your dear sister Becky told every one I'd
gone from coolness to geekdom." I explained to him.
"Well he kissed you first
right?" he asked.
"Yeah, but that means
nothing."
"You two are kinda perfect
for each other. He's a star quarter back on the football team, you're a star
forward on the soccer team. Both werewolves, and you've got pretty much the
same interests. Basically the only difference would be that he's a senior and
you're a sophomore, but I'm sure you could work around that." I thought I
detected a note of jealousy or sarcasm in his voice.
" Oh come on." I smiled
slightly. "Merton that sounds really superficial."
" I told you, I know
nothing about relationships. I can only tell what I think I know."
I tossed a plastic skull up
in the air thinking. "Maybe you're right, see ya tomorrow."
I turned to go but was then
faced with an entirely different question.
"Merton, did that follow
you home from school." I pointed at the thirty foot long coiled green snake
that sat out side his door.
"What…whoa!" Merton backed
away. "I'll get the kit."
"How're we gonna get out,
it's blocking the door." I started to panic.
"You forget," said Merton.
"The Lair is attached to the main part of the house."
"Oh right." I started to
climb up the stairs. Merton followed carrying the red cross box. We came out in
the kitchen. Merton stepped around the table and to a side door.
"We can try sneaking up
behind it. Catch." He threw me the container of red pepper. "Sprinkle it on and
around it when we get to it, that should subdued it enough for us to well… do
something with it."
"Merton you're not keeping
it as a pet, so don't even think about it." I said walking out the door. I
spotted it about ten feet away.
"I'm gonna go get it. Be
ready with the net." I walked up closer to it. It didn't move as I sprinkled
the pepper. Then as I was backing away it turned it's head trying to get me to
stare into it's yellow eyes. Merton came up next me with the net.
"Bag it." I muttered.
Merton carefully put the net over the basilisk. It writhed trying to get free
but I kept sprinkling the pepper around.
"That was easier than I
thought." Admitted Merton. Suddenly I felt a knock on the back of my head. I
fell to the ground, scraping my arm. I felt the strange tingling under my skin
telling me I was about to wolf out. I certainly did not mind that right then.
Standing up I turned to see what had knocked me over. I saw Merton slowly
backing up under a dark shadow. Towering over the both of us stood a full-grown
fifty-foot basilisk. It stood still, and so did we.
"I think we might have hurt
its kid." Merton whispered to me from the side of his mouth.
"I just think it's here
because it's on order from the evil biology teacher." I whispered back.
"Whatever." Merton said.
"How about we stop deciding why it's here and get away from it."
"Good idea. On the count of
three we run." I said. "One, two, three."
Merton and I ran past the
basilisk, down the driveway, and onto the side walk in front of his house.
"Why'd we stop?" Merton
pointed to his driveway. "It's not stopping."
"Good point, the forest we
can loose it there."
"Or we can take the car."
"Car." I said hurrying over
to it. Merton got in on the drivers side.
"No keys." He moaned.
I rolled my eyes and looked
under the steering wheel.
"what are you doing?"
"Hot-wiring your car." I
said as it started up.
"Girls can…" he stopped as
I gave him a very dangerous look. "Never mind, lets haul ass outa here."
We backed out the driveway
and speeded down the street with the basilisk hot on our tail. Merton drove
like a madman trying to loose it, but it wouldn't give up. I flipped all the
mirrors in the car down so we couldn't see the snakes eyes reflected through
them, this made Merton's driving a lot worse. But it helped because after seven
blocks of seventy miles per hour we lost it.
"Now what?" said Merton
after he'd pulled over.
"Let's try to sneak back to
Tommy's house. I'll bet you he either got another basilisk or the same one
after it stopped chasing us." I suggested.
Merton raised an eyebrow,
but said nothing as he turned the car around and headed back towards Tommy's
house.
~
"What are we going to do?"
asked Tommy, who'd just narrowly escaped a very mad basilisk. "They want us
dead, and it doesn't seem like they're screwing up this time. What happened to
stabbing the thing?"
"It would've bit us with
its venomous fangs before we even thought about it." Said Merton.
"I see your point." Tommy
moved a branch aside.
See in order to completely
get away from the basilisk we were walking through the forest to get to my
house.
"How much farther?" asked
Merton.
"The clearing comes soon,
trust me. I used to play in these woods all the time when I was a kid." I told
them. "It's where I found my first soccer ball."
We soon stepped into the
clearing. After this it was only a few more steps to my backyard.
"Let me make sure my
parents aren't home. They've got this thing about boys in the house." I walked
over to the driveway. There no car so I signaled for Tommy and Merton come to
the backdoor. I took out the key and opened the door.
"We can go up stairs." I
said. But before I went up to the stairs I grabbed a jar of red pepper from my
moms spice rack, and a butcher's knife from the dishwasher.
"I feel a little safer
now." Said Merton when I reached my room and he saw my supplies.
"Good. Take this." I handed
him the red pepper.
"Who's that walking up your
drive way?" asked Tommy looking out the window.
I crawled over my bed and
looked out the window.
"Oh damn." I groaned. "It's
my sister Trix. She's supposed to be baby-sitting. Chris had better not decide
to come home. Stay here."
"Hey Cass. I'm home!" I
heard her yell from downstairs. "I found this awesome snake…"
Merton hit his forehead and
started muttering.
"I changed my mind, you
guys can come down with me." I said walking out of my room. They followed and
we went back down into the kitchen.
"I'm telling mom." She said
as soon as she saw Tommy and Merton.
"Where's the snake?" I
asked.
"On the porch." She said
smugly.
"Stay in here Trix, I mean
it." I grasped the knife in my hand.
"Why do have moms good
knife?" she glared at our backs as we went out to the porch.
The snake was coiled up,
and looked ready to strike. I held the knife steady above its head. Merton and
Tommy both stared putting down the pepper. The snake slowly started to unwind.
It stood until it was at eye level with us. We looked down to avoid its eyes.
"Go Cass." Said Tommy
through gritted teeth.
I stuck the knife through
the snakes flank. It swayed around for awhile and fell flat on the ground.
"Easy." I said sighing.
Merton nudged the snake
with his toe, and then declared it dead.
"Ok," Trix walked out the
door onto the deck and stared at the snake. "What in heavens name was that?"
"The reason mom and dad
doesn't want you bringing in animals off the streets." I said giving her the
you-are-in-big-trouble look. "Get inside."
I was to busy yelling at my
sister to notice a flicker a the basilisks tail.
~
(A/n- I'm gonna finish it
within the next few day's or so, so look for the rest soon!)